Out of the Night
by waiting4morning
Summary: Before Saren, before the Reapers, Shepard was just an ordinary person: a daughter, a sister, a friend. Will eventually contain spoilers for the games. Update: Shepard learns a little about the importance of choice.
1. Beginnings

****A/N: A lot of people write about their Shepard's origins. This is mine, based on a series of prompts from a now-defunct LJ community called 100fics. I can't guarantee a consistent flow of updates, though I can guarantee that I might pull from my other drabble catch-all "Shore Leave" simply because I had this Shepard in mind when I wrote a lot of them. But hopefully, most of these will be original to this story. Props to clafount for beta-ing the first three "chapters."****

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><p><strong>Part 1: Childhood<strong>

* * *

><p><strong>Beginnings<strong>

_2154_

Joanna Shepard shouldered her way into the small, prefab colonial housing unit and set down the bags she carried with an "oof!" of effort. She dragged the back of her wrist across her damp forehead.

"Hush, sweetie," she murmured as the infant strapped to her chest began to stir fitfully, awoken by the motion and the growing body heat of her mother.

The prefab was small, Joanna noted, glancing at the standard, sterile walls. But it was theirs.

Matthew entered the door behind her, bag in one hand, and talking animatedly into his omni-tool on the other. Four-year-old Erik followed behind, one hand clutching Matthew's pant leg, staring opened-mouthed at the crowded room that would be their home for who knew how many years.

"…weather's great! I can't wait to start planning the house…" Matt was saying, looking up at her with a grin. Joanna smiled, stroking the soft hair of baby Andrea's head. Matthew was always so enthusiastic at the beginning of a project. And this would be a doozy of a project…. Mindoir, a new colony; a new life; a new start. Joanna turned to open one of the shuttered windows, letting in a warm breeze—hot, but no humidity in the air. Good climate for wheat. As she looked out over the acres of flat, empty land stretching across the plains of New Independence, she envisioned them full and golden with undulating waves of grain. Perhaps she could set up an orchard too…

The baby's fitful whining began to grow, and Joanna realized with a flash of panic that she'd forgotten the time. The doctor said it was important—!

Hurriedly, she squeezed past boxes and bags, digging into the carry-on she'd had in the shuttle until she found—_aha_! The first time she'd had to use a hypo-spray on her baby girl made her weep and tremble for hours afterward. Now, however, she just shushed and rocked Andrea—or Andie, as Erik had taken to calling her—until the pained cries were muffled in the comfort of sleep.

The pain of a hypo-spray was temporary—the chance of little Andie Shepard not getting cancer from the accident as she grew up … well, Joanna was willing to endure anything, even a solid hour of infant screams if she could protect her baby from that.

"Okay... Yeah. Talk to you later Essie," Matt said, plugging one ear against the baby's wails. "Congrats again on your promotion—stop by when you have some shore leave."

Call complete, Matt walked over and took the baby from the harness on Joanna's chest, bouncing her gently. Erik had somehow already found a box with some toys and was methodically lining up model space ships and aircars along a seam in the floor.

Matt and Joanna surveyed the sea of boxes and bags they found themselves in. Joanna looked at her husband, a determined glint in her eye. "Well, let's get started."


	2. Middles

**Middles.**

_2164 - Mindoir_

Andie's face was a picture of frustrated concentration as she stared at the stylus to her datapad.

"You're lying," her older brother Erik declared, also staring at the stylus.

"Am not!" she said in a shrill voice, glaring at him. "It moved!"

"Well, you bumped the table then," he said with a shrug. "Or the wind blew it over."

Andie shook her head, her tangled hair falling across her face. "There're no windows open, and I _know_ I didn't bump the table."

Erik turned to the door, his attention already elsewhere. "Colby said his dad told him a hanar merchant was coming today. Selling some unique fertilizer or something. I'm going to go check it out."

Andie wrinkled her nose, but stood up to follow, not wanting to be left out on a possible adventure. "What's a hanar?"

Erik shrugged. "Colby said they're like giant jellyfish."

Andie scoffed as she hopped down the steps of their home. "That's stupid. Jellyfish need water. There's no water around here, 'cept the Sacagawea River and Mr. Zhang at school said that jellyfish only live in oceans."

Their mother, apparently overhearing, stuck her head out the door as they exited. "Don't stare at the new alien, kids. Remember—"

Andie sighed. "They're people too, I know."

Joanna smiled and tousled her daughter's hair. "Don't stay out too long. I'm going to finish up my soil samples here and once I'm out of the lab, we can scrounge up some grub." A baby's wail erupted from further inside the room. Joanna sighed. "If Gabby lets me, at any rate."

Andie and Erik both hurried their steps away from the house, expecting to be called back at any minute to help with their baby sister.

Erik's longer strides soon outstripped her. Andie bit back a whining call for him to slow down. He was acting weird lately. He didn't want to play with her as much anymore—kept to his room when they weren't out in the fields, and making stupid faces at the older girls at school. She'd asked him what was wrong once because his face was turning so red, and he'd gotten really angry. _I guess I shouldn't have said it so loud_, she admitted to herself.

Still, it wasn't as fun anymore. With Erik being so snooty and their mother being occupied with baby Gabby—who, it seemed, _never_ stopped crying—Andie felt a little detached. Rather like the stylus she had _pushed_ without actually touching it.

The two siblings walked for a good fifteen minutes before the edges of the small settlement of New Independence appeared actually reachable. On the sloping, treeless plains of Mindoir everything was almost always visible but much further away than you thought.

New Independence was too small for a spaceport. Shuttles had to come in from Toscani—the largest city on Mindoir. Which, as Aunt Essie had remarked when she had visited on her last shore leave, made it slightly larger in population than the entire crew of Alliance cruiser SSV _Sydney_. Dad had chuckled, though Andie hadn't understood why exactly and no one had bothered to explain it to her.

"Hey, there's a shuttle on the landing pad!" Erik exclaimed, waving his arm in the general direction of the town.

Andie squinted and could just make out the gently curving hull of what was undeniably a shuttle from a larger vessel. It didn't look squarish and boxy like other shuttles she'd seen, so she hurried her steps to catch up with Erik as they descended into the main part of town.

"Let's go check out the shuttle," Erik said.

"But the hanar thing will probably be at the market if he's selling anything," she protested.

Erik shrugged. "Go, then, if you want. I'm going to look at the ship."

Andie hesitated, torn. She wanted to see this giant jellyfish, but she liked ships too… and she got to spend so little time with Erik lately. Scrab grass scratched at her shins as she hurried to catch up with him.

As it turned out, both of their wishes were granted. The hanar shuttle had only just set down apparently. Little jets of air still hissed from the landing gear as they watched from behind the safety fence that barred casual passersby from wandering onto the landing pad.

Large, calloused hands tapped both their heads. "Should've known I'd find you two here," said an amused voice.

"Daddy!" Andie was too big now to be swept up in his arms and tossed like a sack of grain, but he tugged on her braid with a wink.

"Dad," Erik said with a somber nod. Andie rolled her eyes.

"Are you going to buy from the hanar, dad?" Erik asked in an oddly low voice that squeaked a bit at the end.

Matt Shepard nodded, ignoring Andie's suppressed giggles at Erik's attempt to be "grown up." "They say the fertilizer is a near enough miracle worker. Don't know if it'll be right for wheat—which does very well here anyway—but I'm not one to miss out on the fun. Your mother will probably want to get a sample of it for the lab anyway."

"That doesn't look like a giant jellyfish," Andie said with some disappointment as a slender bi-pedal figure walked down the landing ramp, carrying a packing crate. When it reached the bottom, depositing the crate on the ground, Andie's protests died in her throat. What _was_ that? What she'd thought a human was most definitely not: red skin—no, _scales_—the color of Christmas ribbons covered the stranger's head and face. Dark stripes, almost black, ran from the alien's forehead to back over his bald skull and disappeared beneath his shirt. The eyes were almost like the bulbous eyes of a salarian she'd once seen on a school trip to Toscani—black and very large.

"I do believe that's a drell, kids," Matt said, squinting. "Never seen one before myself but Essie has. Real rare."

The red drell seemed tireless. Crate after crate appeared in his arms to be deposited with the growing stack on the ground. After watching him make several trips with no one else getting off the ship to help, Matt jumped the fence. Since he made no motion for the kids to stay put, Andie followed—ignoring the hiss of protest from Erik. He was just mad she'd thought of it first.

Their father was introducing himself as Andie walked up.

"Glad to welcome you to New Independence," Matt was saying, holding out his hand. The drell stared at it curiously and did not take it, though Andie couldn't see any unfriendliness in his gaze. Perhaps they didn't shake hands where he came from.

"I am Meroe Cantos," the drell said, bowing.

"And I'm Andie Shepard," she announced, causing both adults to stare at her. The drell's gaze was particularly unnerving as it seemed he had two sets of eyelids. She tried to remember what her teachers said about staring at aliens, but it was so very hard not to look when he wasn't anything like the other aliens she had seen—and besides, he was staring at her too.

Matt looked down at her with fond exasperation.

"Andie, go back behind the fence. You too, son," he added, seeing Erik slink up behind Andie with a mixture of defiance and embarrassment.

"But I want to help!" Andie protested.

The drell's curiously seamed mouth parted in a smile. "I thank you both for your offer, but there is only one large crate left and then I will rent a pallet to take them all into town."

"If you're a drell, then where's the hanar?" Andie asked.

"Andie. Home. Now." Matt narrowed his eyes at her; then glanced back up at the drell. "Sorry about her. A little too curious for her own good."

Andie bit her lip. When her father used _that_ tone…

But the crimson drell laughed, his voice oddly resonant in the still, summer air. "She may stay if she likes. Her questions are only natural. I am used to being the first of my kind to many other species." He turned to Andie, who shifted on her feet, waiting to see if her father would still send her home. "I am indeed a drell. My master is a hanar. Unfortunately, my master is not very comfortable on Mindoir—the air is too dry, you see. He would get very ill if he came here for long, so he has asked me to come in his stead."

"Oh." Andie considered this. "You're very nice to do that for him."

"I am a servant of the Compact," the drell replied in a serious voice. "It is my honor to serve where I can."

Andie didn't know what that meant, but she nodded as if she did.

The red drell turned back up the ramp, looking over his shoulder at them. "Stand back, please. I don't wish to accidentally hurt someone."

Matt herded the kids away from the shuttle, but Andie squirmed so that she could see what the drell was doing. Surely he didn't mean to lift that last crate by himself? It was so big! She was sure that not even her daddy—who was stronger than a krogan, in her mind—could have lifted it.

The drell stood, feet braced, and waved his arms. At once a purplish-blue haze erupted over his body, even over his clothes, wreathing his outline in a flickering haze.

Andie drew in a startled breath to ask her father what he was doing, but then the drell moved again and she _felt_ it, like a gentle tug behind her navel. Lightning blue coils surrounded the crate, and Andie watched, open-mouthed with astonishment, as the crate floated into the air. The drell somehow maneuvered himself and the crate out of the tiny shuttle, setting it down with a _whump_ and a cloud of dust.

Matt whistled low and admiring. "Biotic. Wow. Don't think this colony even has one. There was one on Essie's last posting when she visited, but I don't think he ever came planetside."

Andie took a step forward, then another, and then another until she was standing next to the red drell and feeling very small.

"Sir?" She reached out to touch his sleeve. He looked down at her, his inner eyelids flicking across his eyes. Andie repressed a shudder. "Can you teach me to do that?"


	3. Different

**Different.**

_2165 _

"... we look forward to what humanity has to offer the galaxy," said the asari with stripes on her face. The TV news program switched back to a human reporter.

"And there you have it straight from Councilor Tevos' mouth," said the reporter. "Again, if you're just tuning in, we are live on the Citadel, just moments past the official opening of the first human embassy. The ambassador is still shaking hands, but we'll have an exclusive interview tonight. This is a great achievement for our species. We have a lot to live up to. Now back to Kadeem al-Jilani..."

Andie swung her legs back and forth, chin in hand as she stared with glassy eyes at the TV. Bitterly cold winter winds blew across the plains of New Independence. It wasn't quite a blizzard, but it was too cold to go outside. Too cold to do anything _fun_. She focused again on the TV as a commercial with a dancing krogan came on singing about some food chain that didn't exist on Mindoir yet.

"Mom?"

"Hmm?" Joanna was bent over a databad, the end of the stylus stuck between her teeth. She tapped on a figure, frowned, then scribbled something down.

"Why are aliens different?"

Joanna looked up at her daughter. "Well..." She blinked and sat back in her chair. "Why are your friends Colby and Marie different?"

Andie frowned. "They aren't different. Well, Colby's older than me, but that doesn't mean anything except he's taller." She sniffed. "Not by much though."

"Colby and Marie both have some physical differences. Colby's a boy. Marie has brown eyes. They both have different colored skin than you do," Joanna pointed out. "That's different, right?" She watched as Andie frowned in confusion, as if the thought had not occurred to her.

"What do you think," Joanna continued as her daughter continued to frown, "it would be like if everyone in the world, everyone in the galaxy, looked like you and talked like you and acted like you?"

Andie thought for a bit. "It might be fun at first, but it would get really boring after awhile," she concluded. She got to see herself any old day in the mirror. What fun would it be to have to see herself everywhere?

"That's right. And there's your answer."

"Huh?"

"I have a theory," Joanna said, pulling her little girl into her lap, combing her fingers through her hair, plaiting it absently, "that when God made the galaxy, He knew what you just figured out, that everyone being the same would get boring. He knew it would be a lot more fun with different people around, so He made humans, and asari, and krogan, and salarians, and hanar and all the other aliens that I didn't mention."

"Even batarians?" Andie turned around to face her mother, wrinkling her nose.

Joanna frowned. There'd been a lot of anti-batarian propaganda on the human-based channels on the TV lately. Her sister-in-law, Esther, had sent vid mails talking about skirmishes with them out in the Verge. Even with humanity finally gaining a foothold in galactic politics, Joanna knew that would have little to no effect on colonists so far from the seat of power. Still, it was disturbing to see that reflected in a young girl's attitude.

"Especially batarians," Joanna said firmly. She smoothed a loose strand of hair from her daughter' forehead. "Different isn't always a bad thing, sweetie. Some things are the way they are and it's up to us to learn how to deal with them, to adapt, to learn, so that we can help other people do the same. And hopefully, we learn to be friends with more people."

"Like Aunt Essie? She helps people by being a soldier."

"Exactly. But there are other ways to help too. Some people grow food," Joanna winked, tickling Andie in the ribs. She giggled and squirmed out of her lap.

"Yeah," Andie said, grinning, "but farmers don't have shotguns." She scampered out of the room, leaving Joanna open-mouthed in her chair.

"Hey, honey, what's going on?" Matt said, coming into the kitchen, red-nosed and stamping his feet from the cold.

"I think we need to have a talk with Essie about what soldier stories she tells the kids."


	4. Outsides

**Outsides.**

_2165_**  
><strong>

"Want to go outside, kiddo? It's beautiful out and I've think you've earned a break."

Andie looked up guiltily from the haptic piano interface where she was practicing her scales. She _did_ want to go outside—anything other than practice her scales—but Daddy had told her to keep Mom inside as long as possible. It wasn't fair, really, because she'd been inside all morning and wanted to go out to play. She knew that he was getting Mom's birthday present ready, but he didn't tell her what it was. Even poking around in the usual hiding spots hadn't produced anything but a lecture from her mother who suspected her of looking for Christmas presents. It was too early for Christmas and Andie was curious about her _mother's_ presents, but she'd managed to hold her tongue, just barely.

Joanna was still looking at her, waiting for an answer.

"Um…" Andie looked around the room for inspiration, eyes falling on her baby sister Gabby, presently pounding her tiny fists against her play-pad, squealing with glee as the electronic toy changed color and sound according to what part of the screen she touched. "Gabby stinks."

"Again?" Joanna came over, lifted the toddler, and sniffed. "Ugh. Okay. Well, we're going outside as soon as I change her diaper, so put away your piano practice book and your interface gloves and be ready when I come out." She hooked the baby under an arm and walked down the hallway to the nursery, Gabby fussing at being taken away from her toy.

Andie slowly took off her gloves and put them in the drawer as she considered what else she might do to keep her mother from going outside. She still hadn't come up with anything when the front door opened and her father stepped in, looking very pleased with himself.

"Any trouble?" he whispered, seeing her.

Andie shook her head, hair swinging wildly around her face. "She went to change Gabby," she whispered back, giggling behind her hands. "Where's the present?"

Matt grinned and ruffled her hair. "You'll find out when your mother does." He chuckled as she wrinkled her nose at him.

"Where's Erik?" Andie asked. Erik had gone with their father to pick up the present. Lucky.

"Outside," Matt said, striding further into the house. "Jo?"

"Matt?" Joanna came back into the room, bouncing Gabby on her hip. "What are you doing home so early?" Her eyes flickered with worry. "Nothing's wrong is it?"

"No, no," he assured her, coming to take Gabby, blowing a raspberry against her cheek that made the toddler squeal with laughter. "It's a surprise. Come on." He took her hand with his free one and winked at Andie as they left the house. Bursting with curiosity and the infectious excitement, she followed.

"Matt, what did you do?" Joanna laughed as he led her away from the front of the pre-fab colonial house. Andie shaded her eyes against the bright sunlight, but didn't see anything that looked like a present. But it was nice to be outside after being cooped up all morning. She inhaled deeply, smelling the sun-baked dirt and the faint hint of honeysuckle and lemongrass coming from the greenhouse a little further down the path. Her mother's lab was in there; specially set up by Colonial Affairs to test how non-native plants reacted to the soil of Mindoir. It had something to do with "terra-forming," though Andie only had a vague idea of what that meant. But her parents were going the opposite direction, so she trotted to catch up.

"As you'll recall, a certain Joanna Shepard's birthday is coming up…" Matt said as they stopped at the end of the house. Normally, this was where Andie could see the yard and its sturdy white fence. Daddy had told her that most colonial plots on Mindoir came with fenced-off yards for the settlers who practiced animal husbandry. Erik and Andie had used it for football with their friends since the Shepard farm didn't have any animals. She was getting pretty good this year with her last growth spurt. Last time they'd played, she'd charged past Colby to the endzone so hard that the boy—thirteen years old to her eleven—had fallen over. He still maintained that he'd tripped over a clump of dirt.

But the yard wasn't empty this time. A big… creature stood just behind the fence, Erik at its side, holding what looked like a leash attached to some sort of straps on its head. Andie frowned. It didn't _look_ like an alien – the only four-legged aliens she knew of were elcor, and they didn't have four legs, really, just two arms that they walked on most of the time. This thing must be an animal, but she didn't know what it was – it was taller than a cow with a longer head and soft brown eyes. A tail with longer fur swished at its hindquarters.

Joanna let out a gasp. "Matt, you _didn't_—a horse?" Her voice squeaked a bit at the end.

"Papers came through just last week," Matt said. "It takes a long time before Colonial Affairs will allow non-native species on a new colony," he explained, seeing Andie's puzzled expression. "They have to analyze the effects the planet will have on the animal and vice versa. Kinda like what your mom does in her lab but with animals instead of plants." He nodded at the horse. "Go on," he said to Joanna. "Give her a try."

Andie watched wide-eyed as her mother climbed over the fence and approached the animal with slow, gentle motions, talking softly the whole time. Joanna took the straps from Erik who hopped up to sit on the top rung on the fence. Andie crawled up beside him, watching as their mother stroked the horse's short fur, still murmuring. The horse didn't seem to mind, even seemed to nose her mother in a friendly manner, rather like a giant dog might. To Andie's surprise, her mother put her foot in a bit of metal that was hanging down from the horse's side and swung up into a sort of leather seat that was on the animal's back. Without further hesitation, their mother—atop the horse—set off in a gentle walk gradually leading to a run across the field.

Andie climbed to stand on the top rung, one hand on Erik's shoulder for balance. She watched her mother and the horse for a moment, brow furrowed. "Is it… safe?" she asked, turning to her father.

He nodded, a smile lingering on his mouth as he patted Gabby on the back. "Your mother's family used to raise horses on the last bit of prairie in Colorado back on Earth. She was practically born in a saddle. Unfortunately, the ranch went under, and they had to sell the lot of them when your mom was not much older than Erik. She used to talk about raising animals on our farm before we got here—but we didn't anticipate the naturalization process." He shook his head. "Food or product producing animals—cows, goats, sheep, and the like—were researched more quickly; put on the fast track because of the commercial value. They were allowed on Mindoir only after a few years. Horses, though, they're considered recreational. Took 'em this long to approve the import."

Joanna came back around, her short hair tussled by the wind, cheeks pink from the exercise. She slid off the horse and threw her arms around Matt, kissing him with an intensity that made Erik blush and look away with a scowl. Andie giggled.

Matt chuckled when Joanna released him. "So I did good this year, huh?"

"_Better_ than good," Joanna grinned. "Think we could get the Patels to watch the kids tonight?"

"Mmm. If not, we could just tie them up with the horse…"

"_Daaad_," Erik moaned, still red with embarrassment.

"Fine, fine. We'll talk about alone time later," he said with a wink. Erik stomped toward the house, the tips of his ears still burning. Andie wrinkled her nose in confusion. "Alone time." Whatever that meant. What was so different about seeing each other alone when you could see them any time of any old day? Parents were weird.

#

Andie's mother ended up naming the horse a month later: Shepard's Luck, Lucky for short. The name made both her parents laugh, though she wasn't sure why. The same day the horse was named, Joanna told her children she was pregnant again.


	5. Hours

**Hours.**

_Mindoir_**  
><strong>

Andie idly tossed the football up in a lazy spin, caught it, and did it again. Off to the side her older brother Erik was arguing with his friend Colby. She rolled her eyes and huffed out a breath that lifted the fringe of her hair. This was stupid.

"He's just jealous that we won the last time because of my touchdown," she yelled, cupping her hand around her mouth to shout toward the boys.

Colby cast her a cold look and started toward her. Erik put a hand on his arm but the other teen shrugged him off. "No, it's because you're a cheat, freak," he sneered, stopping to loom over her. "There's no way a little _girl _could run that fast. You were glowing. I saw you."

Andie frowned, but stood her ground even if she was starting to get a crick in her neck from looking up at him. "What are you talking about? We won fair and square. Even Marie said so and she's always on your side."

Colby scowled. "That's 'cause she wasn't watching. You were _glowing_, Andie. I don't know where you got red sand, but that's an unfair advantage."

Andie blinked, confused.

Erik angrily grabbed Colby's arm. "She's a kid, Col; twelve years old. She doesn't do stuff like that. Besides, this is just a stupid game. It's not like we're on the school team; we're just playing for fun."

"If it wasn't sand, then what was it?" Colby glared at them both as they remained silent. "Because of your little glowy trick, I tripped and my ankle swelled up. I couldn't run during tryouts, which means I didn't make the team at school and it's your fault. Freak!" He spat.

Andie didn't reply. She _had _felt that weird sensation during the game last week—that funny feeling like gravity was trying to shift around. And she knew that she was different. She'd made her stylus move just by looking at it once—even if Erik didn't believe her, she knew what she'd done. Was it possible? Had she cheated without knowing it?

"I'm going home," she said, swallowing, and dropped the ball. It rolled away in the grass.

Matthew Shepard was watching a vid when she walked into the house. His broken foot lay propped up on a footstool—he'd gotten it caught in some harvesting equipment he'd been trying to fix. "Hey, sweet pea," he said, muting the volume on the vid when she came in. "What're you doing in so early? Thought you were going to play football for a couple of hours."

Andie shrugged. "Didn't feel like it."

Her father eyed her for a moment, then held out his arms. Lower lip trembling, she ran into them, curling up on the couch beside her father and laying her head against his broad, warm chest. She was getting almost too tall to fit into his arms as easily as she did last year, and she snuggled into the warmth of his shirt.

"Daddy, am I a freak?" she asked after a moment. She felt his arms tighten around her.

"Have your friends been calling names?" he said, brows furrowed.

Andie licked her lips. She didn't want to be a tattler. "I... glow sometimes," she said instead. "Weird stuff happens around me. I'm... different. I am a freak, aren't I?" She gulped the last words, throat painfully tight.

Matthew sighed and kissed the top of her head, which was tucked against his collarbone. "You are different, Andie. But that isn't a bad thing... Your mother and I have known for awhile, though maybe we should have been talking with you about it before now. You were born this way—it wasn't anything that you did or didn't do. It just happened." He paused, stroking her hair. "Do you remember all the doctor visits we took you to when you were little?"

Andie frowned, trying to remember. "Yeah a little, but I don't remember much. Kids go to doctors all the time, right?"

"Sometimes," he said with a smile. "You, however, are special. You," he tapped the end of her freckled nose, "sweet pea, have biotic potential. Do you know what that is?"

Andie hesitated, then nodded against his shoulder. "We learned about them at school. Asari are biotic, right?" A memory came to her then and she gasped, surprised that she'd forgotten. "And that drell! He was biotic!"

"That's right, he was. Humans can be biotic too with a lot of luck and special training. You can't do much now, but in the future, if you want to, you could be able to do a lot more. But only if you want to, sweet pea."

Andie stayed quiet, calmed by the sound of her father's heartbeat through his shirt, his strong arms holding her close and safe. She didn't want to leave this, ever.

"So I'm not a freak then?" she asked in a small voice.

"No," her father said, smiling. "You're a Shepard. Now," he said ruffling her hair, "your mother told me you learned a new song that I haven't heard yet. Will you play it for me?"

She jumped up, retrieved her interface gloves and flicked on the piano.


	6. Days

**Days.**

_2167_

Andie wanted a pet. She couldn't really pinpoint when she'd started wanting one, but she supposed the desire had only grown after the arrival of Lucky. Unfortunately, a horse wasn't much of a pet. Oh she liked to ride her well enough—but you couldn't cuddle with a horse, couldn't play fetch. You couldn't take Lucky into the house, or anything like that. Besides, though she rode Lucky a lot, the horse really belonged to her mother. Andie needed a creature of her own.

But she had no success on convincing her mother of this.

"I don't think so, sweetheart," her mother said when Andie had broached the topic. Jo squirted a bit of something into a petri dish and capped it, tapping the auto-label on the top of the dish and placing it into an incubator. "A pet is a huge responsibility and most of the time, it's the parents who end up taking care of a pet once the kid has gotten tired of it."

"I won't get tired of a pet!" Andie protested.

"You will, just like any new toy," Jo said, peeling off her gloves and heading to the back of her lab, toward her greenhouse. Andie followed. "But unlike a new toy, you can't neglect a pet. They need enormous amounts of attention and energy; they're almost like children."

Nothing Andie said made any difference—even appealing to her father didn't change the verdict, who basically said the same thing. So Andie stopped asking, telling herself that it wasn't the right time, and give it a couple of weeks, let her parents think she'd forgotten about it, and she'd check again.

Only she never got the chance.

One weekend, they took a rare family trip into Toscani. Jo needed to pick up some specialized equipment for her lab and even Erik was in a socializing mood, so they decided to make an evening of it, leaving Gabby and baby Isaac with a neighbor. It was a short trip, but still festive. Andie loved seeing the city; the different people—even a few aliens walking around. Erik rattled off the names of the ships coming in and out of the spaceport, Andie craning her neck to follow them with her eyes, wondering with a brief, strange longing, where they were going and what they were doing. She'd never been on a ship, not even a shuttle, though Aunt Essie promised loads of times to take them off-planet when they were old enough and she had sufficient shore leave.

Andie wondered absently what made someone "old enough." Erik was seventeen and she was thirteen. Wasn't that old enough? She'd even started her period earlier this year, technically making her an adult, at least physically—though none of the adults she'd seen looked the way she felt sometimes: like a walking blob of over-long legs, pimples, and stringy hair. Still, though. She wondered if she should e-mail Aunt Essie to remind her of her promise.

Her mother got her equipment without any fuss, and as a treat, they picked up dinner at a restaurant. The Shepard family rarely ate out: New Independence didn't have a lot of restaurants, just one or two local dives that their mother didn't trust the appearance of, and plus was too much of a hassle when the auto-chef did most of the work anyway. And her father liked to turn the auto-chef off once in awhile and cook for them too. But her parents seemed fine with this place and everyone ate until they were stuffed, and piled back into the car to head home.

The clouds rolled in just as they left the outskirts of the city behind, darkening the skies, and sending a chilly breeze blowing in the windows of the ground car. Before long, the clouds opened up, dumping sheets of rain that quickly obscured the road ahead.

Matt pulled over into a parking lot of a gas station. "Might as well wait it out. Downpours like this never last long."

Erik turned his omni-tool on and was soon engrossed in a game. Andie plastered her face to the window, her eyes going out of focus as she watched the rain trails make patterns on the safety glass. She liked how a lonesome drop would get pulled into a miniature stream that flowed down the window, down the car door, and onto the ground, it was almost like watching some kind of dance. She sat like this for awhile when movement outside turned her focus outward. They had parked off to the side of the station, near a dumpster, and there was box beside it, its roof collapsing from the weight and force of the rain. A small, wriggling something was at the mouth of the box. Andie gasped and before her parents could look around, was out of the car.

She heard her mother's startled yelp but kept going, feeling her hair and clothes get plastered to her face within seconds. The small, brown puppy she'd seen at the mouth of the box, shied away from her. It was a shriveled, half-starved thing with patchy fur and gummy eyes, small enough to probably still need its mother's milk—maybe as young as a few days old. Andie picked him – she checked quickly – up and tucked him inside her jacket next to her t-shirt. She was soaked all the way through, but next to her body had to be warmer.

The outcries from her parents when she returned to the car were what she expected, and she let them run their course, feeling a sort of secret joy as the puppy nuzzled her.

"What," Erik said suddenly, into the tirade about pneumonia and wet car seats, "is that?" He pointed at the tiny black nose sniffing its way out of Andie's jacket.

The car got suddenly silent.

"I rescued him," she said defiantly. "He's mine."

"No, absolutely not," Jo said. "Good grief, Andie. What are you thinking bringing that into the car? The thing probably has rabies."

Andie curled her shoulder protectively over the puppy and swiped her dripping hair out of her eyes. "He does not! Mom, he's just a baby. I'm not putting him back outside in that storm. He'll die."

Matt blew out a breath and shared a look with his wife. She sighed. "Fine. We'll take him home, give him a meal, and next opportunity we get, we'll give him to a shelter to find a good home."

Andie opened her mouth to protest, but Erik kicked her leg and a text message from him popped up on her omni-tool. "_Quit while you're ahead, genius."_

So she nodded, sat back, and simply enjoyed the feeling of warm life cuddling against her. Andie frowned. That was strange, the warmth seemed to be traveling down…

Jo sniffed the air. "What is that smell?"


	7. Weeks

**Weeks.**

_2167_

Andie laughed at Macbeth whose tiny tail wagged furiously as he pulled on the stick in his mouth, the opposite end held by his mistress. Four weeks had done much to improve the puppy's appearance. His coat was sleek and shiny, his eyes wide and gleaming, and his little belly full and round.

They sat in the shade of the house, underneath a window. The summer sun was hot on Mindoir and the shade a welcome respite. Andie let Macbeth have the stick and he sank down into the grass, happily gnawing on it as she leaned back on her hands. She had a few more freckles on her nose this summer, though she like most of the colonists had been given the standard sun-shield skin spray that was supposed to last a whole month before needing reapplication.

"… Esther is risking her career," came her father's voice drifting out of the window. He sounded displeased.

"She has a right to happiness, Matt," said her mother's voice in reply. "It's hard to meet people when the only men she's around are professionally unavailable. A relationship is bound to happen sooner or later. To be honest, I'm surprised it's taken her this long. They're only human at the end of the day, and Essie's not the type to settle for a weekend fling on shore leave."

"Yeah, but a senior officer? He—_they_ should both know better." The sound of a chair scraping across the floor accompanied by a sigh from her father made Andie squirm a bit. She knew she shouldn't be listening, but this was interesting! Besides, if she moved now, they might hear her and accuse her of eavesdropping—which she wasn't doing. She just was accidentally overhearing things.

"How did it start anyway?" asked Joanna next.

"Essie was sparse on the details, but I know she first met him while on Arcturus between assignments. He was only a second lieutenant then. Nothing happened back then, she told me, but she kept him in mind as a pleasant enough man and that was that. Fast-forward to her current assignment and there he was, Captain. Apparently they reconnected and hit it off... and, well, there it is."

"I think it's sweet."

"She's too old for him."

Joanna laughed outright. "He's only ten years younger. That's not so bad. Besides, some men like older, experienced women. You should be happy for them."

Matt grunted. Then, after a moment, he sighed. "I'm trying. I just don't want her to get hurt—either her career or personally."

"What's life without a little risk?"

"Well, if this Hackett fellow isn't as good a man she says he is, he'll answer to me."

The conversation drifted to other, boring things so Andie, as quietly as she could, scooted away from the open window. Macbeth followed, his stumpy tail wriggling with glee.

Once it was safe, she stood and kept walking. It was kinda gross to think about Aunt Essie kissing an old guy, but to be fair, Aunt Essie was old too, so she supposed it was okay. Most of her peers at school seemed obsessed with boys. Andie found it hard to join in when the conversations steered that way. It wasn't that she disliked boys or anything... they just seemed just as clueless and awkward and pimply as the girls. What was so attractive about that? Still, she couldn't deny that some boys were nice to look at... not the ones in her grade... but...

"Hey Andie, seen Erik around?" Colby Patel trotted up to her, a soccer ball under one muscular arm.

"Not lately," she replied, glancing at the soccer ball. "You playing a game?" She perked up. "Can I join?"

Colby frowned. "No," he said in a curt tone. "If you see your brother, tell him I was looking for him." With that he walked off. Macbeth barked after him, baring his little puppy teeth.

Andie scowled. Colby could be such a jerkface sometimes. But... she glanced at him walking away, unable to help but notice the way the t-shirt clung to his back, accentuating his broad shoulders. She supposed Colby wasn't _all_ bad.


	8. Months

**Months.**

_2167_

Andie sang under her breath through the last of her chores. After she finished, she could go outside because the teacher had been sick today and the substitute let them work on homework in class. For the first time in a while, she didn't have school work to do at home.

She closed the washer and set the cleaning cycle, yelling as she left the house, "I'm going out!"

Opening the front door, however, she froze. Someone was there, lifting a hand to knock.

"Aunt Essie?"

The older woman looked startled, then a wry grin twisted the corner of her mouth.

"Hey Andie."

Esther Shepard looked older than she had the last time she'd visited on shore leave. Little crinkles appeared at the corner of her eyes as she smiled and her short, neatly trimmed hair had just the slightest hint of grey in it.

Before Andie had recovered from her surprise, her aunt was speaking again. "Your dad around, kid?"

"Um, yeah."

"Can you take me to him? It's important."

Andie hesitated. Aunt Essie was uncharacteristically serious. Normally when she visited, she swept in like a summer storm: laughing, joking, leaving them all a little windswept and smiling in her wake.

"Okay…" Andie stepped outside, and led the way across the yard. They passed the field where Lucky looked up to watch them walk, and Andie checked her omni-tool. Dad had recently installed a security suite on their omni-tools that let each family member know the location of the others in case of an emergency. She'd never used it before, but it was easy enough to figure out. Dad was where she'd thought he was: the wheat fields.

They continued walking in silence, Andie stealing glances at her aunt, who was looking grim. The effect was heightened by the Alliance uniform she was wearing. Come to think of it, the coat she was wearing looked different than the casual blues that Andie had last seen her in. This uniform looked like the one she'd worn in the vid showing the ceremony of her promotion.

Andie caught sight of her dad walking into the utility shed at the edge of the wheat field, the golden waves dipping under a slight breeze.

"Dad!" Andie called, trotting forward. Essie followed with quick steps, quickly overtaking her niece.

Her father poked his head out of the door to the shed, frowning with confusion.

"Andie, what—" He broke off, staring at Essie, a smile creasing his face. "Esther! This is a surprise!" He laughed, stepping out toward them. "You didn't tell us you were in this part of the galaxy."

"Not here for shore leave, Matt," Essie said, stepping forward, giving a brief, perfunctory hug to her brother. "Something's happened," she said in a clipped voice. "John is dead."

Matt stared at her, face blank. "John? Wait, you mean… Dad? Dad's… dead?"

Andie fought the urge to gasp, as unnoticed as she was at the moment by the adults. She knew that there were relatives on Earth; her mother's family, for example. But her father had never spoken of his parents, her grandparents. Any time the subject came up—which wasn't often—he just stayed quiet, speaking as little as possible.

Essie nodded.

Matt's face darkened, and he lowered his head into his hands.

"You can't possibly be mourning him, Matt," Essie said sharply, her hands clenching at her sides. "Not after what he did to Mom. Not after what he did to us."

"He was our father, Essie."

"He sired us. That doesn't make him our father," Essie bit out, folding her arms across her chest.

Matt pinched the bridge of his nose with a sigh. "You didn't come all the way out here to tell me this in person. You could have sent a vid. What's going on?"

Essie shifted. "His will is going to be read in a couple of weeks. Apparently one of the stipulations he mandated is that if we're not there _in person_, we're not going to inherit whatever crap he's going to throw at us."

Matt frowned. "I didn't think you'd be interested in that."

"I'm not. The old bastard named me executrix," she growled, rubbing the tips of her fingers against each other. "He _knew_ I'd try to dodge out of it – that's why he did it. Knew I'd do at least this duty if only for you, the kids, and Andrew."

Matt's eyes widened. "You found Andrew?"

Essie shook her head. "No. I called in a favor with an information broker. The best he was able to get me was a last known address on Terra Nova. We can check it out on our way to the estate reading. Can you leave today?"

"I need to talk to Jo first," he said, sounding tired. He turned and then suddenly seemed to remember Andie, standing and watching with wide eyes. Essie shifted, looking uncomfortable.

"Are… are you going away, Dad?" Andie asked in a voice she hoped sounded calm and grown-up.

Matt blew out a breath, rubbing his hand up and under the hat that shielded his face from Mindoir's sun. "Probably, sweet pea. But let's go home. We need to talk this over with your mother."

#

Andie didn't overhear the conversation between her parents, but her mother didn't seem happy about whatever the decision was. Jo didn't say anything, however, simply sat, lips pursed.

"I'll be gone a week at most," he said at a family meeting, and Jo didn't contradict him. Essie looked relieved. Erik, however, frowned and glanced at the adults one to another as if seeing something Andie didn't.

Later, Andie was pretending to read a book while Erik walked up to their father who was building a tower out of blocks for Gabby. He and Essie were going to leave soon for the last shuttle to Toscani in a couple of hours. From there, they would take a larger, passenger shuttle off-world.

"There's more to this than you're telling us," Erik said in a low voice intended for his father's ears only, but Andie could hear. She stared at her reader, pretending to read, and hoping to hear more.

"Of course there is," Matt said, placing a large block on the tower's walls. "There's always a story, Erik. Doesn't necessarily mean you're old enough to hear it all, however."

"Aunt Essie told me enough already," Erik said with a hint of satisfaction in his voice. Andie squashed the jealousy that immediately rose in her. When would everyone stop treating her like a kid? Just because Erik was seventeen, and she was only thirteen…

Matt raised an eyebrow and some of Erik's bravado faded.

"I'm just… curious, though. I mean, how… why didn't you turn out…" Erik trailed off, shuffling his feet.

"Why do I try to be good man when my father is—or was, I should say—what he was?" Matt sighed, stacking another few blocks. "A long time ago, I made a choice, son. I didn't like what my father did to my mother, to my siblings. I made a choice then and there that I wouldn't be like him, that I would do everything in my power to be something better. It wasn't easy and when I had the power to take revenge, I won't pretend I wasn't tempted. But…" He stacked another few blocks contemplatively. "Being a good person—doing the right thing is much harder than you think. But I had grown up watching my father take the easy way out in almost every area of his life. His laziness and greed led to some horrible actions. I wanted something better for my life, for my children's lives. So I chose differently, even when giving in would have been easier, even when giving in wouldn't necessarily result in a bad thing—I chose… because there's enough misery in this galaxy without one more person adding to it. Especially when we can attempt to make it better." Matt smiled a little. "Essie has a much harder time I think. She finds her own healing in medicine. Healing people who make a difference—soldiers, marines—helps her. But this whole… situation has stirred things up again."

Erik was silent for a moment. "What… what about Uncle Andrew?"

Matt looked saddened a moment. "Andrew had the hardest time dealing with your grandfather's abuse. He left the house as soon as he hit eighteen. He tried to join the Alliance but he didn't pass the psych profiles." Matt looked up at Erik with hard eyes. "He wasn't—isn't—crazy, but he has some issues that he hasn't dealt with in… healthy ways. Essie and I lost track of him over the years, so I hope that this broker of hers has information that's legit." Matt stacked the last block on top of the tower and then chuckled as Gabby promptly barreled through it like a toddler-sized wrecking ball.


	9. Years

**Note: Many thanks to Elana.S for beta-ing the last chapter, this one, and a few others in the wings. :)**

* * *

><p><strong>Years.<strong>

Matt didn't return home until two weeks later. He'd called every night when he could to talk to Jo and to say goodnight to his children. Andie didn't realize how much she missed her father until he was no longer there to talk to. But his calls were something to look forward to for other reasons as well. Every time he called he was in some place different. Andie loved to watch the backgrounds, seeing new places and people and aliens. There weren't very many aliens on Mindoir, so to see her father calling from a shuttle, sitting right next to a volus was exciting.

"Dealing with the will is going to take longer than we initially thought to get through," Matt explained in a tired voice over the vid. "I might be here another week." Andie thought her father looked ill. He was pale underneath his Mindoir tan and there were dark smudges under his eyes. "The good news is that we did find Andrew."

Jo perked up. "Oh, that's great, honey! Is he… how is he?"

"Better than both Essie and I feared. He's… cleaned up his life a lot, been going to therapy and rehab. He's even met someone. Her name is Merta Vatius." His tired face split into a grin. "She's turian. Both Essie and I like her a lot. She seems to be a stabilizing influence in his life, which is what he needs. He sends apologies for not keeping in touch, but hopes to make a trip out to Mindoir soon, especially to see his namesake."

"That's you, sweetie," Jo said, nudging Andie with her elbow.

"Me?" Andie blinked in surprise. "I'm named after… Uncle Andrew?" It felt weird to say it, since she didn't even know what this uncle looked like. She hadn't even known he'd existed until a few days ago. It hit her then, what her father had been saying. Her uncle had been in therapy and rehab. That meant… drugs. She felt a shiver of revulsion, recalling the grotesque pictures her class had been subjected to in class about the effects of various drugs on the human body. Uncle Andrew had been driven to that by years of abuse and bad decisions. With a start, she realized that her father—her own tall, strong dad who'd loved to toss her high in the air when she was little—could have been his brother. Instead of playing with his children, he might have beat them. Instead of putting money aside for a rainy day, he might have drained the family dry trying to keep up a vile habit that would eventually kill him.

Her throat grew tight for no reason that she could name. Her father wasn't a bad person and neither was Uncle Andrew… but it made her sad that bad choices by one person could affect the lives of so many even years down the line, even after his death.

Suddenly she understood what her father had been saying about his choice to do the right thing. That kind of life was the one he'd wanted to avoid. She felt in herself the same resolve; to try to do the right thing, even if it was hard, because it wasn't just her life she was living. She looked down as baby Isaac crawled to her, lifting his chubby hands to be picked up. Other lives would be affected by hers as well. She pulled Isaac into her lap and watched as he cooed happily at their father on the screen.


	10. Red

**Note: Many thanks to Elana.S for beta-ing this chapter.  
><strong>

* * *

><p><strong>Red.<strong>

_2168_

The smells of the festival were mouthwatering: cinnamon and sugary bread sticks, tangy spiced meat, popcorn, and of course, fried everything. Andie barely restrained herself from dancing with impatience as her mother purchased food from a booth. Finally, they turned on their way back to their own stall where Matt and a bored-looking Erik were selling fresh fruit from their orchard, along with several loaves of fresh bread, baked using grain from their own field. The annual summer festival was never a huge profit for the family farm—sometimes they didn't make any profit—but Matt insisted that participating in community events like this were necessary. It let their fellow colonists know that they were still invested in Mindoir, that they cared about the people on the planet itself, not just the profits they gained from exporting offworld, which was the main source of most of their income.

Erik perked up at the sight of the food and took a large portion when their mother passed it out. Andie munched on her share, plopping into her seat, and digging through her pack to find her datapad. She'd started a good book the other day and since Matt wanted them to be present at the booth as a family, that meant no wandering away from the stall in search of other festival entertainment. But that was only for today. Tomorrow Erik and Andie were planning on doing a tour of all the dessert stalls.

Andie frowned, using both hands now to dig through her bag, but it was no use—it wasn't there. She stood, swiping crumbs from her mouth.

"Mom, Dad, I left my datapad at home. I'm going to go get it. I'll be right back."

Her parents nodded and she grabbed her air-scooter from where she'd laid it down. Once out of the fairgrounds, she hesitated a moment, then turned south. She'd take a shortcut through the landing pad. It made the trip out of New Independence a little bit longer, but once she cleared the landing field, it would be a straight shot to the farm.

She saw a shuttle on the landing pad as she arrived, feeling a slight annoyance that she'd have to go around it instead of across like she'd planned. But then she saw its thrusters go on; it was about to take off. She stopped her scooter, willing to wait. The shuttle hovered in the air a moment, dust, leaves, and grass blowing away from the jets.

A high pitched whine drew her attention and she looked up, shading her eyes to see another shuttle coming in, its path shaky—smoke trailing from its end.

It happened suddenly; the shuttle on the ground lifted off, nose pointed toward the sky and the other one coming in, limping like a wounded animal, didn't seem to be able to correct its course. There was a sound of screaming metal, the acrid stench of burning fuel, and then Andie was knocked flat on her back as a shockwave slammed into her, unable to breathe, unable to think. She had time to see the spiraling pieces of the shuttle crash to the ground before everything went dark.

#

She was playing with Macbeth, his little puppy feet pouncing playfully at her hand. Then suddenly he was enormous, but he'd grown a lot over the past year. For some reason he was sitting on her chest, making it hard to breathe.

"Get off you silly dog," she grunted, but he simply grinned down at her, tongue lolling out of his mouth. The weight of the dog seemed to increase and the warmth of his body was seeping into her skin—spreading from her chest into her arms and legs and head. It was growing uncomfortably warm and she struggled to get the dog off, but he didn't budge and she stopped trying for the moment, he was too heavy.

When she opened her eyes again, Macbeth was gone, but she was in a room she didn't recognize. Above her head, the screens on the wall sharpened into focus as she blinked her eyes. One of the screens beeped softly, a red squiggly line flowing across it.

She felt groggy and stiff, like she'd been sick for a long time. Before she could try to remember what had caused her to feel like this, a figure she hadn't seen on the other side of the room stirred. Andie saw her mother lift her head from the arm of a couch and stand with a gasp. In three quick strides she was at her daughter's side, sitting down on a chair beside the bed.

"How are you feeling, sweetheart? Any pain?" she asked, stroking her forehead, which, Andie realized, was wrapped in a bandage.

"No. Just feel… weird," she said in a hoarse voice.

"Probably from the painkillers," her mother said. "You've been through a lot."

Andie licked her lips. Her mother stood again to retrieve a glass of water and a straw and held it so Andie could sip a little.

"The nurse said you could have only a little, I'm afraid," Jo said apologetically, when she took the glass away. "Even water could upset your stomach right now. You'll have to start out slow."

"What… happened?" Andie asked finally, resting back against the pillow, suddenly tired from the effort of lifting her head to sip the water.

The hand stroking her head paused. "Do you remember going home from the festival?"

Andie frowned in concentration, then her eyes widened. "There was a shuttle coming in—it was damaged?"

"Yeah. You were in the blast radius when the engine exploded after crashing into the other shuttle. You were hurt really bad." Jo's voice slipped.

"Am I… going to be okay?" Andie felt a stab of fear through the thick cloud that seemed to encase her skull.

"Yes," Jo assured her. "You'll need time, but the doctors told me that you'll make a full recovery."

Andie exhaled in relief.

"Sweetie, there's one other thing, though." Jo's hand stopped stroking her head and moved down to grip Andie's hand on the cover. "You were… exposed to eezo when the shuttle engine exploded. Because you were already born with the nodules, you were actually very lucky. A person without the nodules would have gotten very sick from eezo exposure, but for you, the nodules absorbed the new eezo."

Andie blinked blearily, unable to follow what her mother was implying.

"Ok."

"It means…. before you only had slight biotic potential. Now, it's all but certain, though it'll be months before you notice any difference in your…" Jo hesitated, "episodes. It's very strong in your body now. When you're feeling better, the doctors can tell you what that means, but I wanted to let you know first."

Her mind feeling slow and stupid, Andie nodded, unable to attach much emotion to what should have been startling and maybe frightening news.

"Get some rest," Jo said, kissing her on the forehead. "I'm going to step out into the hallway and call your father to let him know you woke up."

"Why wasn't he here?" she asked with a yawn.

"It's midnight, Andie. We've been taking shifts so Gabby and Isaac weren't left alone at home. Everyone will come to visit tomorrow. Rest now."

So she did.


	11. Blue

**Note: Many thanks to Elana.S for beta-ing this chapter.  
><strong>

* * *

><p><strong>Blue<strong>

_2168_

The day after he turned eighteen, Erik went to Toscani with some friends to celebrate. At least, that's what he said. When he came home, he showed their parents the Alliance recruitment papers he'd signed with a look of mingled defiance and wariness.

"You signed up without me!" Andie accused him, not seeing the blank look of shock on her parents' faces.

Erik looked a little guilty. "I'm eighteen now, Andie. I'm not going to wait another four years just to have my baby sister tag along."

Andie glared at him, fury and betrayal swirling in her gut. She clenched her fists, trembling with anger, and suddenly the room spun as if the floor was heaving under her feet and for a brief, horrifying moment, she didn't know which way was up. The feeling passed and she felt weak, drained as if she'd worked herself to the bone. By the looks she was getting from her family, she knew she'd glowed blue again. It was happening more often than it used to, ever since the mid-air shuttle collision at the beginning of the summer.

"You could have told us, son," Matt said, frowning at Erik.

Erik scowled, crossing his arms. "Yeah, and then told to get out to the fields like a good little farmer boy? No way."

"Don't you take that tone with your father, young man," Jo snapped. Three-year-old Gabby, sitting on the floor in the living room with some toys, looked up, eyes wide at the tension in the room.

Matt rested his hand on his wife's shoulder and she relaxed a bit, though her eyes still held a mixture of hurt and anger.

"Erik," Matt said, in a calmer but no less firm voice, "the only reason I kept you working the fields was because you didn't have a clear idea of what you wanted to do—or so I thought. If you'd just talked to us…" He let his other hand fall helplessly at his side.

"I never wanted to be a farmer, Dad," Erik said, a little petulantly.

"That's been obvious for years," Jo said, raising an eyebrow. "You think we're blind?"

Erik shifted, looking uncomfortable, the defiance fading.

"I didn't want to make you mad," he mumbled. "I was going to talk to you about it, but then Colby and the guys were laughing, saying that all my talk was just that and I... I don't know, I snapped. Had them pull over at the recruiting station and signed the papers before I could really think."

Matt and Joanna shared a look. Jo sighed and went to Erik, kissing his cheek.

"If this is what you really want to do, we'll support you. Goodness knows your aunt Esther has been waiting for another Shepard to join the Alliance."

"Thanks, Mom." Erik smiled, the tension bleeding out of him.

Andie wasn't so ready to forgive him. She sat in stony silence through dinner, avoiding any attempts at conversation by stuffing her mouth with food every time someone looked at her. But her plan worked too well; instead she had to do her best to ignore the excitement in her brother's voice as he talked the test he was supposed to take, the physical exercise regimen he was going to start the next day, and the training he would eventually receive on Earth.

Later, after dinner, she sat at her piano, fiddling with her interface gloves before deciding on a melancholy Chopin nocturne, which called to mind cloudy skies and the gloom of falling rain. It wasn't as if she was _jealous_ of Erik—not a chance. Who wanted to be in the stupid Alliance anyway? She had grown up on Mindoir, under open sky and wide fields. Why would she want to live in a cramped ship or station? She _didn't_ want to leave. She wanted to stay here in this house with Mom and Dad and Gabby and baby Isaac and Lucky and Macbeth to the end of her days. Her fingers slipped, hitting a dissonant note.

"That didn't sound right," said Erik, coming to stand beside her.

Andie curled her fingers away from the keyboard.

"What do you want?" she said grouchily. She hated it when others noticed her mistakes.

"Hey, no reason to bite my head off," he said, raising his hands in defense. "I just wanted to see what's up. You looked ready to cry at dinner."

"I'm not crying," she said, swallowing hard.

Erik looked at her.

"All right." After a moment, he sat down on the bench beside her, his elbow going uselessly through the haptic interface keys as he leaned back. "I didn't think you were serious that time, when we talked about entering the military."

Andie shrugged, picking at her interface gloves. It was hard to voice the struggle inside her. Erik had been her best friend as long as she could remember; he'd been the one she followed around when she was little, the one who taught her how to do cool things like dig for worms in the soft mud around the river, or how to hide in the tall grasses so still that critters would come right up to them, convinced that they were part of the landscape. Things had changed as they got older. Andie now understood a little of Erik's frustration with her when he was fifteen and she eleven. Gabby was at an age now to follow her around _everywhere_. She even tried to get into the bathroom with her sometimes. But Andie couldn't help it; she missed him. Maybe her claim to want to join the Alliance was less about the exploration of space and more about capturing those all too few memories of their time together.

"I…" Andie licked her lips. "I want both sometimes." She stroked a few keys. "I think it would be really cool to be a soldier like Aunt Essie and do stuff like fight pirates, but I don't want to leave Mindoir either. It's stupid."

"Not really," Erik said, surprising her. "You know how excited I am, but to tell you the truth, I'm kinda scared too."

Andie looked at him for the first time, eyebrows raised incredulously. "Really?"

"Yeah. I mean, I've never been off-planet. Even on Mindoir, I've only ever traveled to Toscani. The thought of being millions of miles away from you guys is a little… freaky." She could see it in his face now, the tightening of his jaw, the worried furrow to his brow. He _was _scared. But he was going to do it anyway.

"Why?" She blurted out. "Why are you going when you're scared?"

Erik smiled and ruffled her hair, chuckling at her scowl.

"Because some things are worth doing, even if you're scared."


	12. Shotgun

**Shotgun**

_2168_

The shotgun was heavy in her hands. She held it awkwardly, not knowing where to hold it that wouldn't set it off accidentally or something. That's all she needed, to accidentally shoot her foot off. She could see the headline now: _Mindoir Teen Shoots off Foot Without Touching the Trigger!_

Her father laughed.

"Hold it here," he moved her hands, "and here." Matt grinned down at her, beaming with pride. "There's no need to be afraid of guns, sweat pea. Have a healthy respect for them, yes, but don't be afraid. Besides, only blanks today, until you learn to handle it."

Andie struggled with the unfamiliar weight.

"I don't see why the Patels can't repair their fences. It seems really silly to have Marie and me 'patrolling' one of the fields."

Her father hesitated.

"They are going to get it repaired, but it's…" He paused and seemed to pick his words carefully. "Well, it's an expensive fix and smart families are careful with the money they spend. A week or two of patrolling isn't going to waste your whole summer. Besides," he continued with a grin, "it's useful. You never know when it might come in handy and not just for keeping feral yeks at bay." He put a comforting hand on her skinny fourteen-year-old shoulder. "It's just a skill, sweet pea. With any luck it'll just be something you can have in common with your brother and you'll never have to use it."

Andie nodded. It had only been a few months since Erik had left for boot camp on Earth. _Earth_. It was strange to think of her brother on humanity's birth place. From what she'd heard, it was crowded and smelly. He'd been too busy to send more than a couple of audio letters saying that he'd arrived safely and that training was hard.

Things had changed. Erik was gone… it was as if a literal page had been turned and her childhood was officially over.

"Now," Matt said, gesturing at the target he'd set up, "get into your stance… watch your hands…"

Andie cocked the gun, inhaling through her nose. Nerves unsettled her stomach, but her hands were strangely steady. Her finger twitched toward the trigger… _BOOM. _The recoil nearly knocked her off her feet, but her father steadied her, settling his hands on her shoulders.

"Not bad, kiddo," Matt said with a grin. "Now that you're used to the recoil, see if you can stand up by yourself this time."

Andie laughed and her nervous tension disappeared. She cocked the gun again, sighting down the barrel at the bale of hay. Ready or not, the future was coming. She may as well meet it.


	13. Yellow

**Yellow**

"This is boring," sighed Marie Patel as she and Andie reached the edge of the malfunctioning fence and turned around to go back the other direction. They'd been patrolling this side of the fence for a week and absolutely nothing had happened. The cows wouldn't even wander this far because of the temporary fence that Marie's father had installed a few days earlier. The main concern was yeks, a large, cat-like creature native to Mindoir. They wouldn't be put off by a temporary fence that wasn't electrified.

"It won't be much longer," Andie said reasonably. "You said your dad is going to replace the fence soon, right?"

Marie shrugged, looking uncomfortable.

"I think so?" She hesitated, shaking her head. "I don't know, Andie. We aren't rich, you know. We lost a lot of the herd to that nasty disease last year, plus half of the calves to predators." She threw a half-pleading look at Andie. "Don't tell your folks. I wasn't supposed to know that things were so bad, but I accidentally saw Dad's datapad." She toed the dirt with her scuffed up boots. "If we don't have a good year soon, we might have to move."

Andie didn't reply. Marie was one of the few close friends she had. The Patels were the nearest neighbors to the Shepard farm. Everyone else was closer to town. Sure, there were some friends at school, and she was getting really close with the girls of the school soccer team, but she and Marie had been friends ever since she could remember. Marie was two years older, but she'd never really thought about that until now.

If Marie left, that meant Colby would be leaving too. Andie looked down. Of course, he was going to be gone soon anyway, going to college… he'd have to go off-planet for that, but there was a community college in Toscani… Andie shook herself from her reverie.

_Don't be stupid. Colby doesn't even know you exist._

"What about school?" she asked, lifting her head, hoping her thoughts about her friend's brother hadn't made her silent too long.

Marie shrugged. "I'll have to transfer. Lots of people do it…" She swallowed, turning her face away. "Let's talk about something else."

But they didn't get a chance to talk about something else, for at that moment, a high _yiiiip_ followed by several answering calls sounded through the still summer air.

Marie froze, hands gripping her gun in white knuckles. "Yeks!" She whispered, eyes wide.

Andie's arms turned to rubber, and she nearly dropped her shotgun.

_"Don't fight the fear_. _You'll only waste time and your enemy will take advantage of that."_

_"'Enemy'? Dad, they're wild cats, not vorcha."_

_"Same principle holds."_

Recalling her father's words, Andie took a deep breath, lifting her shotgun to her shoulder with trembling hands. The yeks appeared at the crest of the hill, staring down at them with orange eyes. They were close enough that Andie could see the tufts of yellow fur on the ends of their ears twitching back and forth. She looked over at Marie, but her friend was still frozen to the spot, her gun seemingly forgotten.

Without barely a thought, Andie cocked the gun and fired off a blast into the air. The yeks scattered, hissing in surprise, and soon she and Marie were alone on the field again.

Andie breathed in deeply, the leaving adrenaline making her feel shaky again. She carefully put the gun on the ground, safety back on, and rubbed her face with her hands.

"Are you okay?" Marie's worried voice made her look up.

Andie laughed. "Are you kidding? That was probably the coolest thing I've ever done! I just pulled the trigger and—" She mimed cocking the gun and firing it, "BOOM. Did you see them run?"

Marie stared at her. "Weren't you scared? I was freaking out over here!"

"Well, yeah, I was at first, but it was like… I don't know, the first time in a shuttle or riding a horse. It's scary but exciting you know?"

Marie shook her head. "I was just plain scared." She rubbed her hands down her jeans. "Glad you kept your head, though. I was pretty much useless."

Andie shrugged but inwardly, she was beaming and the warm feeling stayed with her the rest of their patrol time. Was it wrong to wish for the yeks to return?


	14. Orange

**Orange**

_2170_

Life was totally unfair.

Andie Shepard huffed as she threw herself across her bed. Grounded; how lame was that? She was sixteen, for crying out loud. She felt as if her mother had turned her nose to a corner and set the kitchen timer.

Scowling, she rolled over on her back and stared at the ceiling of the pre-fab colonial housing unit that she'd grown up in. It wasn't as if she'd done anything _really_ bad. Okay, so maybe her grades had been going down this semester, and maybe she had been spending way too much time playing soccer. Her parents didn't understand—playoffs were coming up. If she wasn't in top form she wouldn't make the team—wouldn't be team captain. She _knew_ she could get the girls of the Blazers ready if she only had a chance. But she had to prove herself first and that meant making time for a lot of practice.

Of course, that wasn't the only reason she was grounded. Andie felt her face flush red when she remembered Colby and that... kiss. It had been a good kiss, as far as she knew—she would never admit to anyone that it was her first—but his timing had been terrible. She was supposed to be doing additional chores as part of her penance for her grade report when he'd come to talk. He'd been home from the community college in Toscani for spring break. He'd stopped by to chat and then somehow his lips had landed on hers and next thing she knew, he was pressing her against the side of the house and she was struggling for air and then Colby was jumping back, his face glowing crimson even under his dark skin when her father pulled them apart.

Still, it was stupid. It was just a kiss; he wasn't trying to molest her or anything like her dad had said –or yelled, more like it. Well, sure, Andie grudgingly admitted to herself, all she'd wanted was a kiss, but Colby's hands had been very... handsy. But all she had to do was tell him to back off a bit and the kissing would still be good. She grinned to herself. Wouldn't the girls at school be super jealous that she—who was too tall for the high school boys—had gotten a college-aged boyfriend before any of them? Andie glanced at her omni-tool but it was parentally locked; she couldn't even play any games, let alone text message Colby until her parents disabled the override.

Andie slid over the side of her bed and walked to the window. She could just walk to Colby's house. The Patel farm wasn't within sight from her window, but it wasn't a very far walk: maybe about twenty minutes. She would be back before anyone knew. She pressed her lips together, considering, then shrugged. What's the worst that could happen? More grounding? Besides, she would be right back. Shrugging her arms into a jacket, Andie braced herself on the window.

"Going somewhere?" her mother's voice sounded behind her.

Andie let out a yelp and nearly tumbled out the window. Steadying herself on the wall, she risked a look at her mother, but she didn't look angry, only a little amused.

"I was, uh, just..."

"Come to the kitchen," Joanna said, turning in the doorway. "I want to talk with you."

Shoulders slumped, Andie followed her mother into the kitchen and stopped, eyes wide at the mess. Bowls, mixing spoons, a few oranges, a canister of sugar, and other ingredients stood on the counter, all coated in a light dusting of flour.

"What are you doing?" Andie asked, forgetting for the moment to be sullen.

"I'm making orange rolls," Joanna said brightly, going over to a bowl.

"You are?" Andie said apprehensively. Dad was the one who cooked most often, when they did bother to make meals. Most often their family just relied on the auto-chef for food, but Dad enjoyed cooking when he had the time. Jo, however, wasn't the best cook, and Andie couldn't remember the last time she'd tasted her baking.

"Yep, and you're going to help me." Joanna gestured to the fridge. "Get out an egg and the vanilla stuff."

For a while, Andie forgot about what her mother had caught her doing and concentrated on helping make the dough. Soon, the dough was smooth and warm, kneaded by the electric mixer. They wrapped the dough in plastic wrap and put it in the fridge. As they started to clean up the various utensils, Andie remembered the reason for her punishment.

"I don't think Colby is the right boy for you," Jo said, scraping off leftover dough stuck to the mixer bowl. "For one thing, he's too old and… well, I just don't think he's a good fit."

Andie glared at the measuring cups, rattling them around in her frustration. "Are you going to stop me from going out with him?"

Joanna sighed. "I could try, but I think that would only make you do it anyway. You've always had your father's stubborn streak. I just…" She stopped what she was doing and looked Andie squarely in the face. "You don't want or need a man who's going to try to overwhelm you, to bring you under his thumb. Neither do you need a man who's going to bow to your every whim, to come as soon as you whistle. You need a man who's strong enough in himself to say yes when it matters but to also say no, to be able to go his own way if he thinks it's the right thing to do. You want a man who will look at you and accept you—all of you—not just the likable parts."

Andie ducked her head, her throat feeling constrained all of a sudden. How did her mother _know_ all that?

"And I don't think that Colby Patel is that man," her mother finished.

"He likes me!" Andie said, looking back up, feeling that she suddenly had to defend him.

"Okay," her mother replied, closing the dish washer and wiping her hands on a towel. "What do you talk about?"

Andie opened her mouth, then closed it.

Her mother waited.

Andie picked at a spot of hardened dough on the counter with her fingernail. "We… don't really. Mostly I talk and he sort of… grunts in reply." The sudden comparison with her parents made her wince. Her parents almost never stopped talking. They were always chatting about something and even when they were quiet it wasn't an awkward quiet like the kind with Colby that Andie struggled to fill with some kind of conversation. No, when her parents were silent it was different. It was… content silence.

"He's the only boy that's noticed me," she said, swiping angrily at her eyes which had suddenly sprouted tears. "To all the other guys I'm that... that tall glowing freak, and I'm sick of the other girls laughing behind my back, and of being… alone."

"Oh Andie." Her mother come over and wrapped her in a hug, getting floury handprints on her shirt.

"I'm sorry about my grades and about Colby," Andie said, muffled against her mother's shoulder. "I'll break it off with him. I don't… I mean, I do like him, but I feel like it's mostly on my side. All he wants to do is make out."

Joanna's hands stilled on her daughter's back. "Andie," she said cautiously, "he hasn't tried to…" She trailed off.

Andie blushed and pulled away, clattering around more of the utensils to hide her embarrassment. "No, not yet anyway, plus I remembered what you told me. Please don't give me the sex talk again."

Joanna laughed. "Okay." They continued their clean up for a few moments until Joanna looked over at her daughter again. "How did you and Colby end up together anyway? I never thought the he looked at you except as Erik's little sister."

Andie shrugged. "I've been hanging out with Marie more since those stupid girls at school were being mean, so I was always there when Colby was home from college." She ducked her head, blushing. "I… I've liked him for awhile… so I talked to him. We'd watch movies and stuff. I mean, Marie was there, but it was almost like a date. But then he came to one of the soccer games and seemed impressed. I think he finally noticed that I wasn't a kid anymore." She cleaned her hands at the sink. "The other day, when dad caught us… kissing, I mean… that was the first time we did that."

"Well, I am sorry, sweetie. I can see that you care about him," her mother said softly. "This will be hard, but ultimately, I think it will be a good decision."

Andie didn't reply, feeling her stomach drop at the thought. Sensing her distress, her mother held up an orange, its cheery color bright in the palm of her hand. "Let's make the filling. That way, it'll be ready to go when the dough is done."

Andie took the orange , feeling its firm flesh, smelling the sweetness as she scraped a bit of the rind with a fingernail. "Okay," she said.


	15. Ends

**Ends**

_2170_

Andie paused for breath at the apex of the hill, the autumn breeze blowing steadily into her face. This hill marked the edge of the New Independence settlement. Beyond were still unexplored wilds, rife with tough scrab grass and packs of feral yeks.

Her dog, Macbeth, growled softly in the growing twilight. Andie shifted on her feet, the old shotgun in her hands a reassuring weight.

"Smell a yek, boy?" She rubbed behind his ears fondly. "They know better than to tangle with you."

The little puppy she'd rescued had grown into a hulking mutt with a thick, muscular body: a perfect colony farm dog. He kept the pyjaks and rats out of the utility sheds and was always up for a game of fetch.

She didn't know what she'd do with him if she actually took up Aunt Essie's offer to join the Alliance when she turned eighteen. Andie knew that dogs had no place on a starship. Perhaps if she got a ground posting? But her sister Gabby loved Macbeth too, and someone had to watch out for little Isaac, always into everything. Then again... Andie inhaled a deep breath of the cool, crisp air. She loved Mindoir—she didn't really want to leave at all. She'd never told anyone this, but after her older brother Erik had left to sign up with the Alliance, and she saw the sadness in her father's eyes, she'd formed a stubborn resolution to manage the farm herself someday. She already did a lot of work overseeing some of the hands who labored in the fields. Most crops these days were picked by machine, but strawberries continued to be one of the few fruits that turned out better with human harvesters. The small, red fruit was too delicate to be tossed around by an indifferent machine.

Yes, she decided. She would stay in New Independence, help her father manage the farm, keep her mother infused with new ideas for hardier plants that yielded more.

The only thing to mar this perfect existence was the niggling annoyance of those scientists from that BioWorks company. Andie frowned, remembering the day. They'd come to the door, obvious offworlders with the red-eyed, thirsty look of folks who hadn't gotten used to Mindoir's dry air—which you either did within a couple of days, or got as sick as a turian who'd eaten the wrong kind of food. They'd wanted to talk to Andie in private, but her mother wasn't having it. She'd folded her arms, giving them that look which Andie knew from experience meant she wasn't going to budge an inch.

After much tugging of collars and nervous glances, they'd finally come out with it: word had gotten around about Andie's biotic potential, and they wanted to outfit Andie with a biotic implant. Andie had been intrigued at first. She knew that she could do weird stuff and knew what it was called thanks to the distant memory of a biotic alien who'd been selling something on Mindoir when she was a kid. But she'd never had much control over what she could do. It would flare up at random, sometimes when she was mad, but other times when she was simply over-exited about something. At the words "high-risk surgery" and "possibility of brain damage," however, Joanna had shut them down and politely, though forcefully, removed them from their home.

They hadn't given up, though. Just the other day Andie had received an email from their company, offering the surgery for free provided she take the training course and agree to be part of a study for the new implant. She hadn't shown it to her parents yet. Biotic abilities could be useful around the farm. What if some heavy piece of equipment fell on someone? A wave of her hand and it could be lifted to safety.

Macbeth growled again.

Andie sighed. "Okay, we're going."

She took one last glimpse of the sunset, throwing red, gold, and purple highlights over the distant hills, and inhaled a deep breath, preparing for the downward climb.

Wait a minute. Andie sniffed the air again. What was that? It smelled like smoke….

Andie turned back the direction she'd come, looking out over the small farming community of New Independence. A boxy, battered cargo frigate was clearly visible in the growing darkness, as it had all its lights ablaze. She frowned. The landing pad wasn't equipped to let a vessel of that size land, what a moron... The thought slipped through her mind like gravel beneath her feet as she saw small, ant-like figures moving through the darkness, being pursued by larger forms. The distant _whap_ of gunfire crackled through the air. Her shotgun dropped from suddenly nerveless fingers to lay forgotten in the dust.

"Mom! Daddy!" she shrieked. Macbeth at her heels, Andie ran down the hill and into hell.


	16. Insides

**Insides**

For the third time that day, Andie leaned over a bucket and half-coughed, half-vomited vile black gunk. The doctor waited until she finished then handed her a washcloth to wipe her mouth, taking the bucket away.

Andie lay back in the bed, shivering, her mouth sour.

_Black smoke filled the house. She can't see, can't breathe. But she has to find them. _

_"Mom!" _

Andie squeezed her eyes shut and then wished she hadn't, for it made the memory all the sharper.

_She can't find them. The house was empty except for smoke. Then… her shoes slid on something wet, something dark and spreading in a puddle. She ran out of the house and nearly tripped on the body of Macbeth, resting as if asleep on the steps of her prefab colonial home. _

_The batarian that killed him is standing in front of her, four black eyes staring at her._

Andie felt her stomach convulse again. Only a little of the black stuff came out this time and she wiped it away with the cloth she still had in her hand.

Dad, Mom, Erik, Gabby, baby Isaac. Gone. All of them.

Erik shouldn't have even been on Mindoir, but he'd come home to surprise them for the Founding holiday. She could still hear his voice shouting at her to get to the safe house. Every colony had one, intended mostly for colonists whose flimsy prefabs might not withstand rough weather. No one thought they'd ever have to hide from anything. Who would attack a peaceful farming colony?

But in the end it hadn't mattered. Erik's face had started burning as she watched, the skin turning black and cracking until his insides were outside—

"Would you like to sleep now?" The ship's doctor was at her bedside again. SSV _Einstein_. That's where she was.

Andie looked at her silently. Sleep? No, she would never sleep again, because every time she closed her eyes, the images replayed on the back of her eyelids.

"H-have you found my aunt?" she asked instead.

The doctor nodded. "The captain spoke with her, and she's agreed to meet the _Einstein_ at Arcturus. We should be there in a few days."

Andie nodded, but in reality she wondered if she would last that long. She felt as her family must have: bleeding out happiness, contentment, everything good and wonderful until nothing but empty veins and slack muscles remained.

A husk. That was a good word for her now: a dry vessel that used to contain something bright and good, now crumpled and hollow.


	17. Purple

**Purple.  
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Esther watched her niece lean over the piano, hair falling over her face; the ends falling through the haptic interface keys. She didn't move, didn't play. Her purple sweater stood out against the pale walls, like a bruise on fair skin.

A light step behind Esther made her turn. Her youngest brother, Andrew walked into the kitchen, retrieving a glass of water. Despite herself, Esther repressed a smile. To see Andrew drinking water of all things was a miracle. She still remembered driving him home after a bar kicked him out more than once. She'd never have guessed that he'd turn his life around so completely, but finding religion—finding a new purpose in life—did things to people.

Andrew joined her at the counter, which opened the kitchen up into a view of the living room. The house he shared with his turian wife was small by Terra Nova standards, but to Esther, who'd spent most of her year aboard cramped starships, it seemed vast in comparison. They both watched their niece for a minute. Andie continued to stare down at the keys, unmoving.

"I know how to fix bullet wounds and broken bones, Andrew," Esther said quietly. "How do you fix a broken soul?"

"Esther," Andrew said seriously in a low voice, "she needs help."

"I know. I'm doing what I can to extend my leave—calling in favors, but—"

"That's not what I meant." He gestured her further into the kitchen where the risk of being overheard was lessened. "I know a thing or two about mental illness, and Andie is suffering from PTSD. She says she's okay, but we both know that's not true. We have to get her into therapy."

Esther nodded slowly. "Yes. I didn't want to assume the worst, but…"

Andrew searched her face, his dark eyes serious. "We both know something's wrong when we hide sharp objects from her."

Esther winced. "I know. I just…" She sighed, running a hand through her short, graying hair. For a brief moment, she wished that Steven Hackett was there. He had a talent of seeing through the extraneous issues of a problem and giving a game plan. But Steven was part of the "favors" she had called in. She should have been back on his ship weeks ago, but when the captain of your ship was also a former lover… well, it paid to have friends in high places.

"I just wanted to give her some space to grieve. I thought the funeral would help give her some closure," Esther continued, rubbing her face.

"You don't recover from trauma like she went through so easily," he said and looked off into the distance, the lines around his mouth growing deeper. "Isolation is probably the worst thing we could do, Esther. I've been where she is… a depression so deep you literally can't see that the next day will be any better and that all you have to look forward to is at the end of a syringe… or a gun." He shook himself from the dark memory. "I know you need to get back to your ship, but you don't need to worry about her. Andie has a home here as long as she wants."

"What will she do?"

"I know some local psychologists… and if things go well, I can get her back into school. She'll have a chance of resuming a normal life." Andrew trailed off, jaw clenching.

"What's wrong?"

He shook his head. "I never did get a chance to apologize to Matt… now I never will."

Esther felt a lump form in her own throat. It had been easy to channel her grief into taking care of Andie, into getting the funeral arranged, and the business of moving and other day-to-day details. But now she felt the force of her loss seep into her soul, leaving her swallowing hard in an effort to force the pain away. It didn't work.


	18. Brown

**Brown.**

The world seemed… colorless. No, maybe not colorless, but… brown. Brown grass was dead grass. Brown was the color of decay… but Andie found it hard to care about anything much anymore. Everyone said that it would pass, that she would feel better with time. But when she thought about the future, it seemed a never-ending nightmare of misery. Why would anyone want to feel this way all the time?

Sometimes she didn't want to… but those kinds of thoughts had gotten better with the medication. The meds didn't make the brown feeling go away completely, but they made her feel that she could fight again, at least one more day. Today, though… Andie scuffed her shoes down the sidewalk. Scott was a huge city, much bigger than Toscani, but it was sufficiently different enough from Mindoir that she felt less panicky, less prone to flashbacks when she was outside. Here everything was steel and concrete. No fields, no prefab colonial houses—

_Stop that_, she told herself as her heart started to beat in a sickly quick rhythm that signaled the onset of a panic attack. She inhaled deeply, concentrating on the sounds around her and not her memories, and the worst of the feeling faded. Controlling the panic attacks was a hit or miss talent, but she supposed that considering what had driven her onto the streets, that she'd been able to avoid at least one was good.

Merta, her turian aunt, was former military. She'd been trying to get Andie to try new things. Dr. Hadrawar, her therapist, had recommended that she not stay in the house all day, brooding. New experiences might help distract her, and exercise would help her depression. So Merta had offered to teach her some hand-to-hand combat. It was strange, learning from a turian who was so much taller than she was, but Merta was a patient teacher. She proved skillful at not noticing Andie's frequent mistakes and was adept at accommodating her slower human movements. And it did seem to help a little. When she was concentrating on blocking incoming punches and kicks, it was easier to forget what had occupied her waking hours for weeks on end.

Today, however, when Andie joined Merta, the turian had taken her not to the gym where they usually sparred, but to a shooting range. Andie hadn't felt any misgivings until Merta pulled a shotgun free of the case she'd brought with her. And then memories, flashbacks of the slaver attack had rushed on her like a smothering cloud of smoke. Somehow, she'd made it out of the building without going completely berserk, fumbling with her protective gear, and running out of the range area. Merta had followed, apologetic, but confused, and Andie didn't have the stomach to enlighten her on what exactly had happened.

So she was walking the streets, wondering if there would ever be a day if she felt normal again.

_No,_ she thought, thinking of the five coffins at the funeral, _nothing will ever be normal again._ Her chest felt tight.

She rounded the corner of the block and stopped. Three ground cars sat twisted and crunched on the street. One was half on the sidewalk. A crowd was gathering at the car and behind the people was a woman screaming hysterically. Andie hesitated, part of her wanting to turn back in case of triggering another attack, but the closest route back home was down this street. She cautiously kept walking, only stopping when she glanced over and saw a pair of legs underneath the car that was on the sidewalk. Someone was trapped underneath!

A man in the crowd was trying to gather people to lift the car, but before he could, a purple-hued asari pushed her way through the people and with a wave of her arms, wreathed the car in a blue, distorted corona. Andie felt the tug of gravity being altered and the car lifted into the air like a bizarre parade float. Most of the crowd was gawking at the asari, but a few had the presence of mind to approach the man trapped beneath the car.

"Don't move him!" A man in an Alliance uniform said, shoving his way through. "His back could be hurt." He leaned down over him, saying something in a low voice and then glanced up at the asari. "Ambulance is on the way, but how long can you hold that up?"

"A few minutes more," she replied, voice sounding a little strained. "But I can set it down in the street if necessary."

Andie faded into the crowd as the medics came and got the man trapped under the car onto a stretcher. The asari released her biotic hold on the car and lowered it back to the ground with a sigh. The Alliance man helped corral the crowd away from the medics so they could work. Everyone gave him a respectful berth like they did the asari, who was answering questions from a police officer who'd arrived with the squad car.

A faint something pierced the cloud of numbness that had enveloped her since the funeral. These people… the Alliance soldier and the asari. They hadn't hesitated to help. They had been useful. They wouldn't have walked by like Andie had planned to. They stopped and helped however they could.

A memory came again: a drell moving a crate, her stylus rolling across the table on its own, and her father's voice telling her she could be a biotic if she wanted to. If she'd had an implant, if she'd had the training that had been offered to her… could she have saved her family instead of freezing like a lump of useless garbage?

Back at her uncle's house, Andie searched the extranet for the name of the company who had sent researchers to her house. Had it only been a few weeks? Hesitatingly, she wrote them an email, reminding them of their visit, of her biotic potential, and their offer of the free surgery and training.

Finger trembling over the button, she reread the email, and, before she could think again, hit "send."


	19. Black

**Black**

"Absolutely not," Merta said, towering over the representative from BioWorks. Andie watched from the kitchen, kept there by a stern glance from her uncle who stood beside her.

To his credit, the man didn't look too overwhelmed by the fierce turian face looming over him. He cleared his throat, fingers gripping his black briefcase.

"With all due respect, uh, ma'am, Miss Shepard contacted us herself. Wouldn't it be prudent to consult with her wishes?"

"My niece isn't of age to make a decision like this, and as I'm sure you've looked up her recent history, she is no fit emotional state to leave home and have her brain cut into!"

"I assure you, we have the best medical and mental health professionals available and—"

"And another thing," Merta's resonant voice rose above the rep's. "You may think I'm ignorant when it comes to your species, but I've been doing my research. These implants you humans plug into your heads—L2s? Some of them are practically cripples."

The rep didn't immediately reply. When he did, the corporate tone was gone from his voice.

"The mistakes our… predecessors made with the L2 implants are what we are trying to avoid," he said with a sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose. "In fact, we have recently developed a new, more advanced implant: the L3. Our alpha tests show great promise with none of the side-effects experienced by L2s. I can show you the results if you wish."

Merta looked ready to protest again, mandibles dropping to show her sharp teeth, but the rep held up a hand, open-palmed.

"How about a compromise? We need to continue to test the L3 implant. If our tests continue to show no danger to the subjects, and Miss Shepard still wishes to undergo the surgery, will you reconsider?"

Merta threw a glance at the kitchen. Andie knew she was remembering the conversation she'd had with her uncle. Her uncle had been mostly for the idea; it was the first thing Andie had shown interest in for weeks, but Merta's points about her mental health were not unfounded. The surgery and biotic program would take place off-planet—on Earth, in fact. Once she went, she would likely not be back for a long time. When she'd sent the email, she hadn't really been thinking of what that would entail. The thought of leaving her uncle and Merta for weeks, probably months, made her feel sick to her stomach. But at the same time, she still wanted the surgery. It was a chance to do something her father thought she would be able to do. A chance to never be useless and helpless again.

The rep stood to leave.

"I'll only say one last thing," he said, glancing at the kitchen. "If Miss Shepard still wishes to take us up on our offer, it might be advisable to enter into a physical exercise regimen. The healthier she is, the more easily she'll recover from surgery as well as acclimate to the implant." He nodded respectfully to Merta.

"Thank you for your time, ma'am. Here is my card." He tapped his omni-tool and Merta's lit up in response. "I will be sending the updates on our L3 tests as soon as I have them. Please feel free to ask me any questions." He directed this last sentence to Andie, nodding again, and left the home.


	20. Colorless

**Once again, thanks to Elana.S for the beta!**

* * *

><p><strong>Colorless <strong>

_2171 – Sol System_

From orbit, Earth looked almost perfect: a glistening orb with greens and browns for the continents, shimmering white at the poles, and a pure blue on the oceans. Face pressed against the shuttle window, Andie felt some of her nervousness disappear. Aside from how big the oceans were, Earth looked a little like Mindoir, like home. And, in a way, it was her home—her ancestral home since all humans came from Earth.

Her omni-tool lit up with an incoming call.

"Andie? Have you arrived at Earth yet?" Aunt Esther's voice came over the line. Andie's seat neighbor shifted in his seat, looking disgruntled at the noise. She fumbled in her pocket and inserted her wireless earpiece so that the call wouldn't broadcast to the whole shuttle.

"Yeah," Andie replied. "Just dropped out of FTL."

"Okay, good."

They went over the next few details of her journey, more as a comfort to Esther who, unexpectedly, proved to be something of a worrier. Andie would land in London, gather her bag, and look for the social worker from the hospital who would be taking her to the hospital in preparation for her surgery.

"It'll be fine," Andie said in as calm a voice she could muster. "I'll be fine." She looked over at her other neighbor, Merta, who flicked her mandibles in a reassuring smile and turned back to reading something on her datapad. "Merta will call you after the surgery."

"Okay." A pause on the other end. "I'll be praying for you, kid," her aunt said awkwardly. "I know I'm not as good at that kind of thing as your dad was, but I figure it can't hurt right?"

Andie swallowed. "Right."

Another pause. "Your parents would be so proud of you, Andie. _I'm_ proud of you. I… I know it doesn't mean much, but I was on antidepressants for years just for being knocked around as a kid. You go through that… that slaver attack only last year and now you're making your dreams come true."

Andie hunched in her chair a little. "Don't… don't put me on some kind of pedestal," she said in a choked voice. "I'm not some kind of… mech. I… it still hurts if I let myself think about it," she admitted, "I just… I don't know. I had a lot of help. I had a good therapist and I had you and Uncle Andrew and Merta, and I wanted—want—to get better. This just seems one of the best paths to get there."

"You're a fighter, Andie. I know whatever you decide to do, you'll put more effort into it than anyone else."

#

Andie decided she preferred Earth from orbit. The spaceport was crowded with humans and aliens of all ages and shapes. A trio of volus—voluses? volii?—trundled past, arguing in wheezy voices about some business partner they were supposed to meet; a turian was watching the baggage claim turnstile, mandibles flexing nervously. Salarians chattering in their quick voices rushed past, an asari with a smug smile hurried by with a dozen shopping bags, and Andie even saw an elcor arguing in a slow voice with an spaceport official.

"Merta, look!" Andie said, eyes wide. A krogan—easily seven foot tall at the top of the hump—lumbered past, looking sour. She'd never seen a krogan in person, only on vids. He was easily more intimidating than she'd imagined: orange eyes, dark crest, and leathery, knobby skin that looked impervious to anything that might be thrown at it.

Merta looked and put her hand on Andie's shoulder, holding her back as the huge alien passed them. One of the krogan's slitted eyes found Merta, and the krogan sneered, bearing teeth.

"He's huge…" Andie breathed, wrinkling her nose. Krogans also had a distinct… scent.

"Her," Merta said. "That was a female."

"How can you tell?" Andie hadn't noticed any distinguishing physical characteristics.

"Generally, they're bigger." Merta dropped her hand from Andie's shoulder, gesturing her forward. "Krogan are best to stay clear of, Andie. Most of them are no better than mercenaries, and some are worse. Come on. We're supposed to meet the social worker around here somewhere."

The social worker—a short woman named Edith—was waiting past the security check.

"Well aren't you as cute as a button?" she gushed, when Andie had identified herself. "Just look at those freckles! I bet those are natural, are they? I know girls that have those added on. Friend of mine works at a beautician salon. Freckles are in this year! But only so many, you understand. Just a light dusting across the nose… and maybe one or two in _other_ locations." The woman winked and giggled.

Merta's mandibles lowered a bit in annoyance, but the social worker didn't seem to notice.

"Now," Edith said in a businesslike tone, standing on her tiptoes to look over her shoulder. "Andie, you said that your aunt would be traveling with you… was she on a different flight?"

Merta's mandibles lowered even further. Andie bit her lip.

"Um, Ms. Edith—"

"Just Edith, dear!"

"Right. This is Merta… she is my aunt. By marriage."

For the first time since they'd met her, Edith seemed at a loss for words. Finally she managed a small, surprised, "Oh" and without another word, turned and led the way to baggage claim.

Andie flushed and hung back with Merta. It wasn't the first time she'd witnessed a bit of xenophobia against Merta. To be fair, she'd had to get over a bit of it herself when she first moved to Terra Nova to live with Merta and Uncle Andrew. After all, Mindoir was a human colony. Before the attack, she could count on one hand the number of times she'd met an alien face to face. But when other people found out that her uncle was married to a turian—a law that wasn't even legal on many Alliance planets—their awkward behavior was always an embarrassment.

Thankfully, Edith soon seemed to decide that filling the silence with talk was better than the alternative. Andie let the woman chatter away as they retrieved their luggage and got into a shuttle. It had started to hit her that her surgery was happening soon, and her stomach fluttered with nerves.

After the riot of sights and sounds and smells of the spaceport, the inside of the hospital seemed drab in comparison. At least it was warm. Winter in England had a damp chill that seemed to seep into Andie's bones, and she was glad for the blast of hot air that greeted her inside the doors. Merta, too, was glad to get in.

"Turians don't like cold and wet," she said, mandibles pulled tight to her face.

Edith took charge of Andie's luggage, letting her be whisked away by a bevy of nurses for a consultation with the surgeon. She hadn't been allowed to eat for a day because of the surgery and was starting to feel tired and grumpy. Luckily, the nurses seemed not to notice her growing sullenness and went about their tasks of preparing her for the surgery with brisk professionalism. As the only turian in a human hospital, Merta was eyed questioningly and with some suspicion, but since she was a relative by marriage, they couldn't outright forbid her from being with Andie during the proceedings.

There was one point, however, when something had to break through her shell of growing anxiety.

"We need to cut your hair in the back here," said one of the nurses. "The implant goes at the base of the skull, right at the hairline. It's where the implant will be inserted and also where, as a biotic, you will access the open port, which is also known as a headjack."

Andie hesitated only a moment. Her hair had been long ever since she was little. It was perhaps the last thing that bound her to her home and childhood… and she needed to move forward if she was to escape the despair that could so easily seduce her again.

"Cut it all off."

"There's no need to bother the top—"

"No, it would look stupid. Just cut it all off, and I'll let it grow back all the same length."

A few minutes later, Andie dared to look at herself in the mirror. They hadn't shaved her bald, like she'd expected, but it was a shorter style than she'd ever had, about as short as her brother Erik had kept his hair. The hair at the base of her skull had been buzzed close to the skin and then shaved with a razor, but that was unavoidable. She touched the scrap of bare skin, imagining the bit of metal that would soon be there. A headjack, they'd called it: an open port to her brain in which she would learn to plug a biotic amplifier, enabling her to control her biotic outbursts.

Soon, the final preparations were complete and she was laying on her stomach on a gurney in a thin hospital gown, goose bumps rising on her exposed arms and legs as scrub-clothed nurses wheeled her into the operating room. Merta, never one for sentiment, had simply patted her back and told her that she would see her when she woke up.

"Hi Andie," said the voice of her surgeon somewhere above her head. Though she could see for the most part out of a hole in the middle of the part of the gurney that cradled her head, all she could see at the moment was tiled floors and a trailing wire. Cool air blew across the back of her shaved neck and she shivered.

"Hi," she said in a voice that she hoped didn't quiver.

"Are you ready?"

"I think so, yeah."

"Alright then. We're going to start the drip, and I want you to count backwards from ten, okay? Let me hear you."

"Ten." The tile was white with specks of color in it, like granite, though she supposed it couldn't really be granite, not in an operation room. It was pretty though.

"Nine." Someone's foot edged into her field of vision, a smudge of brown against the rainbow of the tile.

"Eight." The colors started to blur and she blinked, wondering what was wrong with her eyes.

"S… seven." Her breathing sounded incredibly loud for some reason, as if she was drawing a hurricane into her lungs.

"Six…" The colors in the tile seemed to brighten and then bleed away, draining the little squares of life and then all went black.


	21. White

**Once again, thanks to Elana.S for the beta!**

* * *

><p><strong>White <strong>

_2171 – Earth, BioWorks Training Academy for Biotic Youths_

"I wonder what's going on today?" Andie wondered as she used her chopsticks to maneuver a ball of sticky rice into her mouth. A group of teachers walked through the cafeteria with hurried steps and anxious faces. She resisted the urge to scratch at the headjack at the base of her skull. Her surgery had more than half a year ago, so it no longer itched as if a thousand ants were biting her neck. It was a sort of phantom itch now: her brain's reaction to a foreign presence that it was still getting used to. Their instructors said it would fade in time and then usually followed their reassurances with another lesson on proper maintenance of said headjacks.

"Mmm?" Her friend Saskia was gazing across the room at a completely different distraction. John, a student in their class, was eating with his usual assortment of followers and apparently had said something funny because they all were roaring with laughter. Andie rolled her eyes and kicked her friend lightly under the table.

"Ow! What?" Saskia scowled, tearing her dark brown eyes away.

"Something's going on today," Andie repeated. "The teachers all look nervous. That can't be good news for us."

Saskia shrugged, obviously not caring. "Maybe some kid warped a chair or something. It happens sometimes."

"Maybe…" Andie said, unconvinced.

"You ready for the trials today?" Saskia asked, changing the topic with a wave of her chopsticks. "What team did you make?"

"Delta Team," Andie said, grinning. "And yeah, I'm ready—ready to wipe the floor with your team!"

The trials were the biotic students' version of a practical portion of final exams for the semester. Though BioWorks was technically an independent research and development corporation, they were heavily sponsored by the Alliance who hoped to recruit the young biotics once they came of age. As part of that sponsorship, during the trials the students were bused over to an Alliance training facility with a combat simulator. Not all the simulations during the trials would be combat, of course, because not all the biotic students were headed in a military career path, however much it was encouraged. The trials were designed to show what the students had learned and how well they used their abilities to overcome various obstacles.

"If you mean 'wipe the floor' as in getting the highest score, I already knew that would happen," Saskia said with a snort. "You're the best student here, Andie. Everyone knows that. You're the only one besides the teachers with the stamina to keep a barrier up _and _still have enough power to throw a crate across the room and then warp it into submission. I don't know if you've noticed, but you kinda freak everyone out."

Andie drew back, frowning. "What are you talking about?"

Saskia's eyes slid over to John again, who was rising from his table, tray in hand. "I don't mean anything by it, just…" She shrugged. "There's a reason you don't have a date on the weekends."

Andie flushed. "The reason I'm so good is because I practice on the weekends when everyone else is out getting drunk," she snapped, hands clenching. "Maybe you'd be able to lift something more than a few inches off the ground if you practiced too."

Saskia's face crumpled. Andie sighed, closing her eyes.

"I didn't mean that, sorry."

Saskia nodded and stood from the table. "I gotta go. My team wants to practice before the trials start."

Andie followed, lifting her tray, wondering what Saskia would think if she knew the truth. The reason she had started practicing on the weekends was partly to avoid the social gatherings on the weekends. It had started when she first arrived after her recovery from surgery first as an attempt to catch up everyone who seemed so much more advanced than she was, and then as a sort of shield against the other students. All her peers were concerned about dating and sex and who was doing what with whom on the weekends. It all seemed so… juvenile. Didn't they know what was out there? Didn't they know about pirates and… slavers?

But of course they didn't. Most of the other teens at this facility were from Earth, probably the safest place in all of Alliance space in terms of danger from the rest of the galaxy. She didn't have anything in common with any of them. They all had families and homes and hobbies outside of the biotic school. Andie… didn't. Her aunt and uncle sent regular vid mails, it was true, but Andie knew she couldn't anchor herself to them, couldn't duck back under the illusion that everything was okay as long as she had someone to take care of her. She was seventeen. Next April she'd be eighteen, legally an adult according to the Systems Alliance. She had to have a plan so she wasn't a drain on her aunt and uncle's resources. Once she had vowed never again to be a useless leech, and she would prove it, if only to herself. And she would be ready the next time a batarian showed his ugly face.

She looked up, noticing that Saskia had left her quickly behind and felt a twinge of annoyance. She hadn't even apologized for that comment, even if it was true. Whatever. Andie would have a get an apology later. It wasn't fun to have sullen silence between roommates.

Walking toward the cafeteria exit, she nearly ran into a tall, dark-skinned man in an Alliance uniform who was walking in at the same time.

"Excuse me," he said in a deep voice, "I seem to be lost. Can you point me in the direction of Commander Palmer's office?"

Andie took in the two horizontal gold bars on his uniform as well as the small, nearly imperceptible N7 pin on his collar and straightened slightly.

"Of course, Commander. It's down this hallway, turn right at the intersection and straight down. Her door is on the left with the big Alliance sigil on it."

The man nodded. "Thank you…"

"Shepard. Andie Shepard, sir."

The man's dark eyebrows rose. "Shepard? I've heard a lot of good things about you. Top of your class in academics and biotic potential? Glad to meet you. Name's Anderson."

Andie shook the Commander's hand.

"Anyway, I have to be going," Anderson said, eyes darting down his intended path. "But I'll be keeping an eye out for you at the trials. Good luck, Shepard."

"Thank you, sir," Andie said in surprise, eyes wide, and watched him leave. What was an Alliance officer doing at their school? Then it hit her: the trials. That must be why the teachers were so nervous. Anderson must be one of maybe several Alliance recruiters. Everyone knew that the Alliance sought biotic soldiers from their ranks. A few had already graduated and enlisted during Andie's time there. This must be the next round of recruiting… and her chance to finally do something with her life.

Andie inhaled a deep breath and set off toward the gym. Delta Team had to practice.

#

Andie took longer in the showers than everyone else, and so consequently she was alone in the locker room when she changed into her uniform. Which was lucky, really, because she didn't think she could face her teammates.

Delta Team had lost. Badly.

She sat down on the bench between the lockers and rubbed her hands over her face. What had gone wrong? Delta Team had some of the best students of their class. They had prepared. They had practiced. But it hadn't seemed to make a difference. Their final score hadn't even given them any of the top three spots. Andie had been counting on those scores to impress the Alliance recruiters. Now she had nothing.

She heard the door creak open and realized she had been staring blankly at her open locker. Belatedly, she reached for her belongings when a familiar deep voice brought her up short.

"Tough fight out there, Shepard."

Andie turned, seeing Commander Anderson at the end of the row of lockers, arms folded across his chest. She didn't reply, pulling on her jacket. Shouldering her bag, she moved to walk past him. His voice followed her.

"So that's it, huh? You're giving up already? Not even going to learn from what went wrong?"

She stopped and turned around. "I'm not really in the mood for a lecture… sir."

Anderson kept staring at her with a level gaze, no pity on his face, but no malice either.

"This isn't a lecture, kid. This is life. Do you want to know what went wrong out there?" he repeated.

Andie sighed. "Fine. What went wrong?"

"You're too good, Shepard. That's what went wrong."

Andie blinked, confused. She'd expected a boot-camp style dressing-down on what a failure she was.

"What?"

"Ever since I got here," Anderson replied, arms still crossed, "I've been told that you were the one with the most potential. A lot of biotic students here are uncertain about their abilities, about what they want to do with them, but your teachers all told me you were different. You were at the top of your class for biotic potential, you spike higher than even some of your professors, and better yet, you planned to enlist next year. You're the best and brightest this school has to offer, but the education you gained here lacked a crucial element."

"What's that?"

"Teamwork." Anderson leveled his gaze at her. "Shepard, I watched you walk out into that simulation confident but alone. You acted as if the other three members of your squad didn't exist."

Andie flushed with anger. "Everyone knows I'm the only one with barriers worth anything. It was in the plan that I would take the brunt of the attacks and they would flank, but it just… fell apart."

Anderson shook his head. "A good squad leader never takes on more than she can handle. Your failure today wasn't the scores, it was in leadership."

Andie locked her jaw to keep it from trembling even as her throat burned. She wouldn't cry. This whole stupid trials thing wasn't worth crying over, and she should know that, should know better.

"I didn't come here to berate you, Shepard," Anderson said after a moment of watching her silently.

"Then why did you come?" she asked, brow furrowed.

"Because I saw something that no one else did: even when you could see the tide turning against you, you fought. Leadership skills can be taught, Shepard, but you're a fighter and that's something you're born with." He took a step forward and tapped his omni-tool. Hers lit up in response. "Next year, when you turn eighteen, give me a call. I'd be happy to sign your enlistment papers." He smiled then, softening his stern features. "The future is blank unless you do something, Shepard. A white canvas waiting for you. Don't let it stay that way."


	22. Green

**Once again, thanks to Elana.S for the beta!**

* * *

><p><strong>Green<br>**

_April 11, 2172- Mindoir_

Some of the old panicky feeling was starting to creep back into Andie's chest as the shuttle landed. Uncle Andrew reached over and grasped her hand, giving it a squeeze. She swallowed hard, squeezing back. This time was different, she reminded herself. She had family, she wasn't alone, and no slavers were going to attack this time. And if they did, they would no longer find her the helpless child she was two years ago. This was something she needed to do.

Today, she turned eighteen. Today she would enlist in the Alliance military, leaving her old life behind. It seemed fitting to have a new beginning on the place where her childhood had died.

Two years after the attack and this was the first time she'd been back since she'd left after being rescued by a passing Alliance patrol. Now there was a permanent garrison on Mindoir with a large Alliance symbol painted in bold blue on the top of the building. That wasn't the only change. Despite the slaver attack, Toscani appeared to have increased in size since she'd seen it last. Perhaps Colonia Affairs was making a concentrated effort to portray Mindoir as a safe, bustling colony and not the deathtrap it had been for Andie's family two years ago.

The shuttle landed on the same landing pad that she'd witnessed a shuttle explosion. She touched the back of her neck where her hair was now long enough to cover the headjack at the base of her skull. She was a strong biotic. The researchers at BioWorks had been very pleased with her progress. According to a scale of human biotic power, she nearly measured as powerful as the best L2s and at eighteen, that was more than good.

She'd grown stronger. She'd worked hard to move past the trauma of the attack and live as normally as possible. But just being back on Mindoir, smelling the same air—it made her tremble.

They walked through New Independence toward the churchyard. The town had rebuilt, though Andie couldn't help but substitute memories of old buildings for the new ones. The small town where she'd spent a lot of time as a child wasn't the same. It was as if they'd hurried away the blackened decayed husk of a body in favor of a shiny new one, but Andie could almost smell smoke in the air. Going to the churchyard wouldn't solve anything; her family would be just as dead now as they were two years ago. She didn't want to look at the forgotten burial place of all who had died, covered, no doubt, by dying grass and impersonal silk flowers. She stopped suddenly in the middle of the sidewalk, feeling sick.

"I… I don't want to do this."

Uncle Andrew put a hand on her shoulder, not saying anything, but he didn't have to. She was being that child again, avoiding something rather than facing it head on. No, she had to do this, if only for the sake of her own sanity. Inhaling a few deep, shuddering breaths, she nodded and they continued. She found herself looking down at her feet instead of ahead as they approached the church and its neighboring graveyard.

Finally, they stopped. Andie had her eyes closed, fists clenched to keep them from shaking. She couldn't do this, she needed more time—

"Andie…" said her aunt Esther in a soft voice. "Look."

Slowly, Andie raised her head and opened her eyes. Her fingers uncurled themselves to press against her mouth as tears, unbidden, ran down her cheeks. A part of the cemetery had been sectioned off with flowering shrubs that had so many blossoms on them that they looked like a giant wreath encircling the quiet graves within. An arch over the entry had words carved on the lintel:

_In memory of those who died during the raid of Mindoir, 2170. _

_"The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death."_

The graves weren't hidden in the dark, under concealing trees and dead grass. They were out in the open under the warm sunlight and spread with a thick carpet of green. It wasn't a place of death but of life and renewal.

For the first time since the tragedy, she was able to picture her family as they used to be instead of the bloody messes from her nightmares. Dad, tall and proud as he surveyed a golden field; Mom, intent on a lab report but also taking time for her children in the form of games and outdoor activities; Erik kicking a soccer ball to her, a laugh on his face; little Gabby puckering her lips for a goodnight kiss; and finally baby Isaac, cooing and laughing at the faces she made over his crib. They were here, and they didn't hate her for surviving, didn't hate her for being useless or helpless. Because that's what she was, despite her biotic power, despite her intentions to enter the military.

But should she give up her dream now when it seemed pointless?

_No…_ Through her tears, Andie surveyed the graves, not just of her family, but of the many others who had died. She remembered the _Einstein_, the Alliance ship which had decided to check out a little blip on their communications, never dreaming it would be a slaver attack on a peaceful human colony. Because of them, she was alive and this colony had a new beginning.

Power was useless unless put to work. Andie wiped her cheeks, her heart thudding within her, not from anxiety or fear of bad memories, but with renewed purpose. She would become stronger, not to protect herself from harm but to protect those who couldn't protect themselves.


End file.
